A police officer has been jailed for 10 years after admitting the manslaughter of his long-term lover.

Constable Timothy Brehmer was sentenced on Wednesday after being cleared of murdering nurse Claire Parry in a car park off the Horns Inn in West Parley, Dorset, on May 9.

The 41-year-old was accused of strangling the mother-of-two after she sent a text message on his phone to his wife revealing their decade-long affair.

Parry, 41, from Bournemouth, was taken to hospital for treatment but died shortly afterwards. A post-mortem examination concluded that the cause of death was a brain injury caused by compression of the neck.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Jacobs said: “You were a trained and experienced police officer and your character witnesses described how you would help others.

“Yet you did nothing to try to help Claire Parry. You did not ask her how she was. That was because you knew how she was.

“You could not possibly thought, as you said in your police interview, that she was simply taking a breath.

“You must have known that her body had gone limp after your assault on her. Before you walked to the car park entrance you must have seen how she was – hanging half out of the car.

“It must have been obvious to you as a trained police officer with extensive experience of casualties in traffic accidents that she was not breathing.

“In evidence you said you did not realise she was poorly. I consider that you appreciated that she was much worse than that.”

The jury at Salisbury Crown Court was shown police body-worn video footage which showed Brehmer sitting in shorts with a top and with blood visible on his body.

Paramedics told the court that they were called to the Horns Inn in Christchurch Road, West Parley, to the defendant who had suffered stab wounds from a penknife to his arm.

He is seen sobbing and when asked what had happened, he says: “I have been having an affair for years, she was going to tell my wife, I am afraid I am going to lose my boy, so I met her here.

“She told my wife, I don’t remember the rest.”

Brehmer, of Hordle, Hampshire, at the time of the incident was seconded to the National Police Air Service based at Bournemouth airport.