'Devious' police officer accused of murdering lover claims she was 'angry with uncontrolled jealously'

Timothy Brehmer, a police constable, is accused of the murder of Claire Parry in a car park of the Horns Inn in West Parley, Dorset, on May 9.

The 41-year-old is alleged to have strangled the mother-of-two after she sent a text message on the defendant’s phone to his wife revealing he had been having an affair.

The defendant told Salisbury Crown Court he agreed to meet Mrs Parry, a nurse, after she had been ‘relentlessly’ sending him messages for the previous two days.

He said Mrs Parry was angry with ‘uncontrolled jealousy’ because she had found out he had previously had an affair with another woman, leaving him feeling ‘desperate’.

Sobbing, Brehmer said: ‘I had formed the decision that I was going to end my life.

‘I couldn’t face the rejection from my family, I felt I didn’t have anyone I could talk to.’

He added: ‘It was like hurricanes in your brain, total turmoil, spinning plates and they are all falling on the floor.’

Brehmer, who is in Dorset Police and lives in Hampshire, said when Mrs Parry drove into the car park she was angry and after she got into his vehicle she asked for his phone so she could look through his social media apps.

He said: ‘She was taking the mickey out of me, she was angry, she was being snide, nasty.

‘She was so angry, I do not know if she was jealous of my ‘perfect life’, as she called it.’

Brehmer said at one point he stabbed his arm three times with a penknife but Mrs Parry ‘did not care’.

He said he demanded Mrs Parry get out of his car but she refused so he first of all tried to pull her out before he ‘bundled’ into the car to try to push her out and his arm ‘must have slipped up in all the melee’.

Brehmer said he then left the car without realising Mrs Parry was ‘poorly’.

The 41-year-old died the following day and the cause of death was a brain injury caused by compression of the neck.

When asked by his counsel, Joanna Martin QC, if he had planned to kill Mrs Parry, he replied: ‘Absolutely not.’

He added: ‘I didn’t intend to hurt her in any shape or form.’

Under cross-examination by Richard Smith QC, prosecuting, Brehmer initially denied being a ‘well-practised liar’ but then accepted the term after admitting he lied ‘consistently well’ to his wife over their affair.

When asked if he described himself as a ‘devious bastard’, Brehmer responded: ‘That’s how I consider myself now.’

Brehmer, of Hordle in the New Forest, who at the time of the incident was seconded to the National Police Air Service based at Bournemouth Airport, denies murder but has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Referring to a text message sent by Mrs Parry on the defendant’s phone to his wife revealing he had been having an affair, Mr Smith asked: ‘When that text message went, you were so enraged at the catastrophe that was now ensuing, you grabbed her so hard for so long that you fatally injured her?’

Brehmer replied: ‘No.’

Mr Smith continued: ‘You were so angry, was it because she laughed at you when you quickly tried to reset your phone?’, to which Brehmer also replied: ‘No.’

Mr Smith added: ‘Was it her snide remarks that angered you?’ to which Brehmer replied: “No, I took that as her jealousy.”

Mr Smith then asked: ‘And you stabbed yourself in some kind of act of pretence to say you had been stabbed?’ to which the defendant responded: ‘No I did not.’

The prosecutor continued: ‘You strangled Claire Parry fatally in your car because you were so enraged about what she had done, that’s the truth isn’t it?’

Brehmer replied: ‘That’s not the truth.’

Mr Smith continued: ‘And you lied in an attempt to cover up what you have done and you are cowardly, to use your own words, you cannot accept the truth of the enormity of your own responsibility?’

Brehmer replied: ‘That’s not true.’

He added that he was not trying to ‘manufacture’ a case of self defence by stabbing himself in the car and said he did not know why he said on the day that Mrs Parry had stabbed him before changing his version to say he had stabbed himself.

(Proceeding)

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