The husband of a nurse killed by her policeman lover has said he is disappointed with the verdict, after the killer was sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail for manslaughter having previously been cleared of her murder. Timothy Brehmer, 41, killed Claire Parry, also 41, a married nurse and a mother of two, after she sent a text message from his phone to his wife saying: “I am cheating on you.” Parry, from Bournemouth, died from a brain injury after severe neck compression during what was described in court as a “kerfuffle” in Brehmer’s car. The two had met in the car park of the Horns Inn in West Parley, Dorset, on 9 May, where she confronted him about another of his extramarital affairs, the court heard. Brehmer, a constable with Dorset police, claimed Parry accidentally sustained the fatal injury as he tried to push her out of his Citroën so he could drive away, and his arm “must have slipped in all the melee”. He was acquitted of murder by a jury at Salisbury crown court, but had previously admitted Parry’s manslaughter. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Jacobs said Brehmer must serve two-thirds of his prison sentence before applying for parole. “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,” the judge said. “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 trial heard the injuries would have resulted from significant force to the neck for a minimum 10 to 30 seconds and possibly longer. As a “trained and experienced” road traffic police officer, Brehmer would have known Parry was seriously injured yet did nothing to help her, the judge said. He could not have thought, as he said in his police interview, she was “simply taking a breath”, the judge added. “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.” Brehmer, described in court as a “womaniser” and whose wife was a police officer, had been having an affair with Parry, whose husband was also a Dorset police officer, for more than 10 years, the court heard. Parry had “fought hard” against Brehmer, “if only for a short while”. Brehmer had stabbed himself three times with a penknife. The judge said he had sought at the scene to blame Parry for stabbing him, lying to police and others at the time. “These lies were in my view particularly serious,” the judge added, given Brehmer’s job. He said Brehmer only just met the “qualifying trigger” for a loss of control defence in that he had a “justifiable sense of being wronged” because he should have been the one to tell his wife about the affair. He accepted Brehmer had “been a good policeman”, was remorseful and the killing was not premeditated. He also accepted jail would be “particularly difficult” as being a police officer placed him in a vulnerable position in prison. Karen Ingala Smith, of the sexual violence charity nia, which runs the Counting Dead Women project, said: “Timothy Brehmer’s time in jail will be significantly shorter than his relationship with Claire Parry. It will also be significantly shorter than the duration of the pain of those who loved her. The criminal justice system in this country is failing women.” Shaista Aziz, from the domestic abuse charity Solace Women’s Aid, said: “We welcome the judge making it clear that the violence inflicted on Claire Parry was deliberate. This is important – you can’t accidentally break someone’s neck. It’s important the record was set straight there.” However, the judge’s comments that Brehmer lost self-control “is typical of the language used to justify violence against women and girls”, she said, and Brehmer’s suggestion “that it just happened” was typical of excuses made by perpetrators of abuse and violence, Aziz said. After Brehmer’s acquittal for murder, the Centre for Women’s Justice tweeted: “We know so many women serving life sentences for murder after lashing out in fear of their abusers, yet this man who is described as using ‘grooming’ techniques to exert coercive and controlling behaviour, escaped a murder conviction.” In a statement after sentencing, Parry’s widower, Andrew, said he was “incredibly disappointed” at the verdict and believed Brehmer to be a “well-practised liar” whose account was “inconsistent and untruthful”. Brehmer, who he said the trial had exposed as “consistently dishonest, deceitful and devious”, had conducted a factory reset on his mobile phone minutes after the killing, which “hindered the police investigation and leaves us with an incomplete picture of events on that day”, he said. “What we do know is that Brehmer used such force against Claire that she suffered fractures to her neck, lost consciousness, went into cardiac arrest and eventually died.” Brehmer failed to “render any assistance to her which could have saved her.” Instead he “chose to tell lies” by stating Parry had stabbed him. “This lie led to a delay in Claire receiving what could have been lifesaving treatment, a fact that remains incredibly distressing.” The statement added: “Claire was a caring nurse practitioner who helped many people in a career of over 20 years. She was a loving family member and a doting mother who leaves behind two young children. “Her energy and enthusiasm for life were infectious and our lives are poorer without her in them. This trial has been a horrendous ordeal for all of Claire’s family and friends. We ask that our privacy is respected while we try to rebuild our lives.”