THE police officer accused of murdering his long-term lover admitted being a “well-practised liar” and described the day his victim died as “just chaos”, a court has heard.

Timothy Brehmer, 41, Of Hordle, New Forest, was in the witness box as his murder trial at Salisbury Crown Court continued on October 21.

Brehmer is accused of strangling nurse Claire Parry, whom he’d been having an affair with for 11 years, in his car at the Horns Inn pub car park in West Parley on May 9, the defendant admits causing Mrs Parry’s death but denies murder.

The defendant told the court he agreed to meet nurse Mrs Parry, 41, of Bournemouth, after she had been “relentlessly” sending him messages for the previous two days.

The court heard how Mrs Parry was threatening to tell Brehmer’s wife about the affair, leaving him “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 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”.

Mrs Parry died the following day and the cause of death was a brain injury caused by compression of the neck.

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.

Referring to a text message sent by Mrs Parry on the defendant’s phone to his wife revealing the 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 denied.

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?”

“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.” The trial continues.