UK - Constable arrested in murder of Claire Parry, 41, near Bournemouth; she died 10 May 2020

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2:06pm

Proceedings are now back underway.

2:08pm

Mr Smith asked Brehmer if, in the time in the police force, he worked out some of the traits of defendants.

Brehmer said "you do see how people react" and said it's "almost human nature" to minimise responsibility.

2:09pm

"Humans will naturally try to minimise their responsibility, every human will."

2:10pm

"Over the 17 years, have you experienced someone say something at an incident and change his story later on?" Mr Smith asked.

Brehmer said he couldn't remember any specific occasions.

2:11pm

Mr Stentiford told the court he made an intelligence report after speaking to Brehmer at Exeter Prison, Brehmer confirmed this was good practice.

LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

 

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2:14pm

Mr Smith said the two fundamental things Brehmer has told the jury is he was trying to get Mrs Parry out the car and he did not deliberately take Mrs Parry around the neck.

Mr Stentiford told the court Brehmer told him Mrs Parry was trying to get out the car and the defendant took her around the neck.

"Would you agree with me, your version and that version are totally different?" Mr Smith asked.

2:14pm

"We had a conversation," Brehmer said. "I did not go into specific details with him."

LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

 

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2:16pm

Brehmer confirms he told Mr Stentiford about his job in the helicopters, how he lost his family and his shift pattern. He confirmed he told the prison officer the incident happened in a car and the victim was a female.

2:17pm

"You said you broke a bone in your victim's neck, did you tell him that?" Mr Smith said.

"I said that was something I had subsequently found out," Brehmer replied.

2:20pm

Brehmer said he doesn't know where the suggestion Mrs Parry was trying to get out the car came from.

He said Mr Stentiford added a "level of embellishment" to his statement.

2:21pm

"I think so, yes" Brehmer said when asked if Mr Stentiford lied.


LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

 

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2:23pm

Brehmer said he did not "in anyway" make a physical description to Mr Stentiford of what happened in the car.

2:24pm

"I can't think why he said that," the defendant said.


LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

 

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2:25pm

Mr Smith asked why Brehmer didn't mention to Mr Stentiford how Mrs Parry broke a bone, he replied he "wouldn't have gone into that detail".

LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

nice question!

 

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2:26pm

Mr Smith said: "Was this an unguarded moment with a caring prison officer, where you were relieved to talk to someone out of your cell and you gave a real account of what happened?"

Brehmer replied: "I understand why you think that, but no."

2:27pm

Mr Stentiford, last week, said he expressed to Brehmer he was surprised he would take someone by the neck.

Brehmer described this as an "assumption".

"We didn't have any conversations about him expressing concerns about what you should and shouldn't do."

LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

 

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2:28pm

"We are left with a stark situation Mr Brehmer, from that day in July in Exeter Prison, you say one thing, he says, in two crucial parts, something completely different," Mr Smith said.

2:30pm

Brehmer said he feels the training in the police "can be better", but described it as a "different kettle of fish".

He also said "it's not good practice" to take someone around the neck.

"It's not to say people aren't taken around the head or neck."

2:32pm

Mr Smith asks if Brehmer would agree if someone chose to hold their victim "so hard, for so long" around the neck that they go unconscious, must intend to cause them, at the very least, serious injury.

Brehmer said: "I understand what you're saying, but I disagree there's an intention there."


LIVE: updates as murder accused Timothy Brehmer gives evidence in court

 

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2:38pm

On May 6, at work, Brehmer sat outside having a beer. Mr Smith said Brehmer's wife was "blissfully ignorant" to the affair. He asked Brehmer if "life was good" and he confirmed.

2:40pm

Brehmer confirmed he told Kate Rhodes there was an "exit strategy" in place to leave his wife.

He said: "At the time, it was something I was considering, but things changed and I decided not to."


LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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2:42pm

Mr Smith asked if there was then a "volcano of threat" after May 6 from Mrs Parry threatening to tell Mrs Brehmer about the affair.

2:44pm

"The threat from Claire Parry that she was going to tell Martha about the affair, concentrate on that, you must have been so worried?" Mr Smith asked.

"I was worried about everything, but not only that but that as well," the defendant replied.

"The whole topic of conversation was worrying."

2:44pm

Brehmer confirmed the affair being laid out to his wife would be "catastrophic".

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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2:47pm

"At that time, it wasn't rational thought for me," Brehmer said when asked why he wanted to kill himself.

"I was a coward, I didn't want to face that level of rejection." He said on why he didn't speak to his wife.

2:49pm

Mr Smith said: "You wanted to have your own wife and son to have a visit from someone to say the father and husband had killed himself".

Brehmer replied: "I didn't think that, it wasn't rational thinking."

2:51pm

"This reason of rope and suicide, is it because you wanted to emotionally blackmail Mrs Parry, saying if you tell (Mrs Brehmer), I'm going to kill myself?" Mr Smith asked.

Brehmer denied.

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

another nice question!

 

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2:52pm

Mr Smith asked if the receipt was in the car so Mrs Parry could see it.

Brehmer said he moved the receipt into the back of the car so she couldn't see it.

2:53pm

Brehmer said he went to meet Mrs Parry to find out what she wanted to talk about.

Mr Smith said: "What on earth is there to do, life is at an end? Why did you need to pop into a car park to see her?"


LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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2:55pm

"The truth is you wanted to meet her because you wanted to talk her out what she had been threatening to do in the messages for two days," Mr Smith said. Brehmer denied.

"The rope, the story was emotional blackmail. You took £250 out to see if you could give her that to stop her telling your wife."

2:58pm

"What you did on that Saturday is transfer your meat and your washing into the boot of the Citroen. You said to Martha 'I'm off to get my washing' it was an excuse. You called into work so they'd see you. You put it in the boot so you could carry it home after meeting Claire and say 'there you go darling, I got my washing and my meat'." Mr Smith said.

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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3:10pm

Brehmer's police interview does not talk about a conversation to fill the 20 minutes between the text message to Mrs Brehmer and the defendant being seen on CCTV.

Mr Smith asked if the conversation was a detail Brehmer has added, he denied.

3:16pm

Mr Smith said it seems "odd" Mrs Parry didn't lock the door when Brehmer got up and walked to the passenger door to try and remove her.

3:19pm

Mr Smith said the Crown don't accept that the injuries Mrs Parry suffered came from Brehmer trying to push her out the car.

"I suggest to you you took her life by taking her round the neck for so long and so hard, that's the truth isn't it?" he said.

Brehmer denied.

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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3:21pm

Mr Smith asked if Brehmer tried to make the way he took Mrs Parry's life to be positional asphyxia rather than strangling her to death. The defendant denied.

3:27pm

Earlier in the trial Dr Amanda Jeffery said Mrs Parry's injuries were "severe" and the force would be "significant for a minimum of 10 seconds".

Mr Smith said Brehmer has to explain an incident that brought around the severe injury to Mrs Parry's neck, where a "significant force was applied for 10 seconds where she would have been fighting for life".


LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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3:28pm

Brehmer said: "I think that happened when I was struggling to get her out the car. When I was on top of her trying to 'piggy back', I had my arm I thought across her chest, I think it might have gone up when I rolled across."

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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3:30pm

"What did she have her neck against where you were putting such force into her that she lost her life?" Mr Smith said.

"I think my forearm as I fell out on top of her and she was trying to go back in. That's what I think it was a struggle, it was just chaos."

3:31pm

Mr Smith asks why he didn't walk across the road to get help removing Mrs Parry from his car.

Brehmer said he didn't know.

3:34pm

"It's just lies isn't it, Timothy Brehmer." Mr Smith said.

3:34pm

The court will now break for 15 minutes.


LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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I haven't seen any mention of whether she managed to scratch him while he was strangling her. She had his DNA in her nail swabs but no mention of injuries to him. Perhaps he held her arms with his other arm, or it's just a detail that hasn't been reported.

 

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3:54pm

Mr Smith asked if it was "remotely true" Brehmer thought Mrs Parry was having a rest.

He said: "You knew you left her fatally injured and that was the best you could do."

Brehmer denied.

3:59pm

Brehmer said after the incident he went to the road to ask for help "for her, for me, for everything".

Mr Smith said it isn't true he wanted help for her.

4:01pm

Brehmer said he walked off from the car "for self-preservation" because he wanted help.



LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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4:02pm

"At the point I wanted other people to help, I knew I couldn't leave," he said.

4:07pm

Brehmer accepts asking if Mrs Parry was dead and saying he was going to prison.

He said the tears at the scene were for himself and his family "and everyone".

4:09pm

"If you had been sat there, and you found out this woman who you thought was catching a breath was dead, you'd say 'oh my god, how's that happened', 'let me go see her'.

"The reason you said you're going to prison is because you knew you strangled her and there's nothing that could be done."

4:15pm

Brehmer said he thinks, in his panic, shock, he meant to say he had been "forced into this", when asked why he told a police officer Mrs Parry stabbed him.

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution

 

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4:20pm

Brehmer confirms the things he said at the scene suggested someone else inflicted the knife wounds into his arm.

4:21pm

"It is unbelievable, the whole thing was so surreal," Brehmer said.

Mr Smith said it was "unbelievable" what he told staff at Poole Hospital and he changed it over night.

4:23pm

"I don't know why I said something and then changed it."

4:24pm

"I didn't lie, I just got it wrong. I didn't consciously tell lies."

4:25pm

"I was in a state of absolute shock, I got it completely wrong," Brehmer said on why he 'lied' to the people at the scene.

"It wasn't a deliberate lie, I got it all wrong."

4:26pm

"It's easy to look back on it now, that day was just bonkers."

4:31pm

Brehmer denies hitting Mrs Parry or "banging her off anything else".

4:33pm

Mr Smith said: "Were you thinking of putting her back in her car?

"The fact of the matter is, you strangled Claire fatally in your car because you were so enranged at what she'd done, that's the truth isn't it?

"You have lied to try and cover what you have done, and cowardly, to use your word, you can't admit the truth to what you've done."

Brehmer denies.

4:34pm

Ms Martin will now rexamine Brehmer.

Brehmer said "there is absolutely no truth" that he strangled Mrs Parry and then stabbed himself.

4:35pm

Brehmer said he was keen to be interviewed to assist officers "as best he could".

LIVE: murder accused Timothy Brehmer asked who he is crying for by prosecution