A “man whore” police officer strangled his long-term lover to death after she sent a message revealing their affair to his wife, a court has heard.

Timothy Brehmer, a police constable who grew up in Andover, is accused of murdering nurse, Claire Parry, 41, in a pub car park on May 9.

Richard Smith QC, prosecuting, told Salisbury Crown Court that the 41-year-old defendant, who attended schools in Andover before joining Dorset Police, had been having an affair with Mrs Parry for more than 10 years.

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

Mr Smith said that Mrs Parry had carried out research on Facebook using an alias into Brehmer’s past and had become convinced that he had carried out at least two other affairs as well as with her.

He explained that she was in contact with a police officer called Kate Rhodes who had an affair with the defendant in late 2011 and who made her see Brehmer “in a very different light”.

Mr Smith said: “Claire Parry had recently been led to believe the defendant had indulged in other affairs with other women and he was something of a womaniser.”

He added: “Claire Parry was facing what she might have thought was the impending end of her marriage and the realisation that the man she had been having an affair with for years was perhaps not the man she thought he was at all and not a man who was likely to set up with her.”

Mr Smith said that a note written two days before her death was found on Ms Parry’s phone which was addressed to Brehmer’s wife, Martha, also a police officer.

It said: “Dear Martha, what I am going to say is likely to come as no surprise to you, I am figuring you have always suspected but tried to ignore, there is no easy to say it but put simply your husband is a man whore.

“Myself and others have fallen victim to his words and charms, his promises of being in a loveless marriage to only staying for the sake of your children.

“He sucked me in years ago and made me believe he and I had a future until he realised you were pregnant.

“He didn’t tell me about you at first, that he was married and when I found out he told me he was going to leave.

“I have since realised I was not the only one he has weaved this story to, there are at least two more.

“He tells us that we are special that he has fallen in love with us.”

Mr Smith told the court that Brehmer met Mrs Parry in his car outside the Horns Inn in West Parley, Dorset, where he strangled her following an argument with such force that he broke a bone in her neck.

He said that the defendant admits causing her death but that he had not intended to strangle her but that he “was simply robustly trying to get her out of the car”.

Mr Smith said that, while the pair were in the car, Mrs Parry had taken the defendant’s phone and sent a message to his wife saying: “I am cheating on you.”

The prosecutor said that Brehmer told police that he had been suicidal at the prospect of his wife being told and had even unsuccessfully attempted to buy a length of rope before meeting Mrs Parry.

The defendant also said that he stabbed his arm with a penknife to see if Mrs Parry “cared”.

Mr Smith said: “Was this a man who was getting a length of rope to take to the meeting so he could emotionally blackmail Claire Parry – ‘I am going to take my life if you tell my wife’.”

He added: “The reality is this defendant became significantly angered by what Claire had done, she wasn’t to be placated, she wasn’t to be smoothed, she did carry out her threat to send a text to Martha – that was ruining his life.

“For the first time perhaps in their relationship, he was no longer the person who had control and he turned on his lover with rage, angry rage.

“He took hold of her tightly around the neck, probably in the crux of his forearm, so tight that he compressed the life out of her.”

Brehmer, of Hordle, Hampshire, 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. The trial continues.