Police officer jailed for manslaughter after strangling lover who revealed affair to wife

Timothy Brehmer, 41, sentenced to 10 years for mother-of-two Claire Parry’s death

Claire Parry was killed by former Dorset Police officer Timothy Brehmer after she told his wife about their affair (PA)

A police officer who strangled his long-term lover after she revealed their affair to his wife has been jailed. 

Timothy Brehmer, 41, who was cleared of murder, has been jailed for 10 years and six months after admitting to the manslaughter of mother-of-two Claire Parry. 

The former Dorset Police officer killed Ms Parry, 41, in a pub car park on 9 May after she sent a text message from his phone to his wife, saying: “I am cheating on you.”

Brehmer, whose wife was also a police officer, and Ms Parry, a nurse, had been having an affair for more than 10 years, Salisbury Crown Court heard.

In the days before her death, Ms 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 Brehmer. 

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

Brehmer said Ms Parry was angry when the pair met outside the Horns Inn in West Parley, Dorset, and asked for his phone so she could look through his social media apps after getting into his car.  

He claimed the married nurse accidentally suffered the fatal injury when his arm “must have slipped up in all the melee” while he was trying to push her out of his Citroen so he could drive away. 

A post-mortem examination concluded Ms Parry, from Bournemouth, had died from a brain injury caused by compression of the neck. 

Jailing Brehmer for 10 years and six months, Mr Justice Jacobs said he would serve two-thirds of the sentence in prison before he could apply for parole.  

He added: “This is a case where I should sentence you on the basis you lost your self-control following the sending of the text message to your wife where the affair was revealed, rather than on the basis that you had no intention to kill or cause really serious harm.  

“I am sure that you did deliberately take Claire Parry by the neck, applying significant force with your forearm or the crook of your elbow for a period of time while she struggled against you thereby causing the severe neck injuries which the pathologist described.  

“The evidence from the pathologist was that those injuries, which she described as ‘severe’ on a scale of mild, moderate or severe, resulted from the application of significant force to the neck for a period of a minimum 10 to 30 seconds and possibly longer.  

“She said it was difficult to envisage a situation where a struggle in the car imparted the necessary degree of force or could explain the extent and severity of the neck injuries.”

The judge also said that, as a “trained and experienced” road traffic police officer, Brehmer would have known Ms Parry was seriously injured “yet did nothing to try to help” her. 

Additional reporting by PA