A MARRIED police officer accused of the murder of his long-term lover has admitted being a “well-practised liar” and a “devious bastard”.

Timothy Brehmer, a police constable from Hordle, is accused of the murder of Claire Parry in a Dorset car park 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.”

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

Brehmer 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”.

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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, 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.