Police officer found not guilty of murdering long-term lover

A married police officer has been acquitted of murdering his long-term lover after she revealed their affair to his wife.

A jury took just under three hours to find Timothy Brehmer, 41, not guilty of murdering mother-of-two Claire Parry.

Brehmer had previously admitted the manslaughter of the married nurse who he had been having an affair with for more than 10 years.

The police officer, who served with Dorset Police, will be sentenced at Salisbury Crown Court by Mr Justice Jacobs later on Wednesday.

Mrs Parry died during a "kerfuffle" in his car at a car park of the Horns Inn in West Parley, Dorset, on May 9 this year.

The court heard that while the pair were in the car, Mrs Parry had taken Brehmer's phone and sent a message to his wife saying: "I am cheating on you."

Brehmer claimed she accidentally suffered the fatal injury while he was trying to push her out of the vehicle so he could drive away.

She was found by ambulance paramedics unconscious at the scene and later died in hospital.

A post mortem examination showed she died from a brain injury caused by compression of the neck.

He told the court he had planned to go and kill himself because of the consequences to his family of their affair being revealed.

The trial heard that in the days before her death, Mrs Parry had started to believe her marriage to Andrew Parry, also a Dorset Police officer, was coming to an end, as well as her relationship with the defendant.

She had carried out research using an alias on Facebook into Brehmer and became convinced he had had at least two other affairs.

Mrs Parry, also 41, was in contact with a police officer called Kate Rhodes, who told her she had an affair with Brehmer in late 2011, and this made her see him "in a very different light".

Brehmer told the jury that Mrs Parry, 41, was angry and had "uncontrolled jealousy" because she had found out about a previous affair of his, leaving him feeling "desperate", and he planned on killing himself.

"I couldn't face the rejection from my family, I felt I didn't have anyone I could talk to," he said.

Brehmer said that 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.

"She was taking the mickey out of me, she was angry, she was being snide, nasty," he said.

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

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

He said he demanded she get out of his car but she refused, so he first 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".

Asked by his barrister, Jo Martin QC, if he had planned to kill Mrs Parry, he replied: "Absolutely not. 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 the affair.

Asked if he described himself as a "devious bastard", Brehmer responded: "That's how I consider myself now."