A 'controlling' husband raped and murdered the wife who was in the process of divorcing him and then 'staged a scene' in an attempt to get away with it', jurors heard on Tuesday. 

Michael Thompson, 55, snooped on, recorded and tracked wife Kimberley, who had taken a new boyfriend and was 'moving on' with her life. 

Jurors were told Thompson accessed her mobile devices and hid a phone on 'recording mode' in her car - as well as other handsets around the house - and would record Kimberley, who was known as Kim, on his own phone during arguments.

The court heard the estranged couple were sleeping in separate bedrooms at the time of the alleged murder last August. 

Prosecutor Miranda Moore KC said: 'This case relates to the rape and murder in short succession of Kim... and the steps this defendant took to get away with it.'

She told how Thompson dialled 999 just after 6am on August 9 to say he had gone downstairs and found her lifeless body with empty strips of tablets and vodka.

By then, Ms Moore said, Kim was dead and Thompson had begun 'setting a scene' – sending messages purporting to be from Kim, moving bottles of gin and alcohol into the downstairs bedroom where he claimed to have found her, as well as empty strips of co-codamol tablets.

The court heard a picture of the couple on their wedding day and a montage of Kim's late sister, who committed suicide, were on the bed when paramedics and then police arrived. Both images were usually kept in other rooms of the house.

The court heard that before dialling 999, Thompson also wrote a text message on Kim's phone - which was sent to his phone in the early hours - in which she supposedly wrote: 'I'm really horny - sorry, I'm going to f*** you now.'

Thompson told police he went downstairs and found her 'merry' and had sex with her before returning to his own room at 3.10am, but Ms Moore said: 'The prosecution case is she did not send it.'

She said the message was an attempt to cover up the fact he had raped her, while his placement of the tablet packets and drink bottles were to suggest a suicide and 'cover up' the murder.

Ms Moore said police and paramedics were 'entirely taken in by this charade' and comforted Thompson.

Officers 'swallowed' the scene Thompson had created, she said, and 'took the view that this was a drink and drugs incident – a suicide attempt or an unfortunate accident'.

The court heard they failed to seize a glass containing yellow liquid which was seen next to the bed, and allowed undertakers to remove the body before Thompson was left to 'clean up' the Northampton property.

'The police were fooled by what he had done', Ms Moore said.  They permitted the crime scene to be disturbed and her body removed without the forensic investigations which are usually done in a suspicious death.'

The court heard messages from Kim's Facebook and Snapchat account were also posted in the early hours saying she had 'drunk to much' – but her daughter and friends raised concerns, the court heard. They told police said she would never have spelled 'too' incorrectly, but that Thompson did do that in messages.

He was eventually arrested three days later and 'maintained the fiction that she died due to drink and excess drugs', Ms Moore said, but toxicology proved that Kim had not been drinking and had not taken co-codamol.

A pathologist concluded that Ms Thompson had been smothered, dying of external airway obstruction. 

Earlier jurors were told their daughter, Athena, now 18, was an 'England team basketball player' who was away at college in America when Kim was killed early on August 9. 

Nottingham Crown Court heard that from 2014, eight years after their marriage, Mrs Thompson, who was known as Kim, told friends of 'physical, emotional abuse and controlling behaviour by Mr Thompson', and at one point went to a domestic violence unit. 

The court heard Thompson was interviewed at one stage after allegedly pushing his wife out of an upstairs window, but told officers it was her own fault because she had been leaning to reach a bracelet that had fallen off during an argument before she plunged on to the roof of their extension.

Jurors were told Thompson would 'demand sex, including her dressing up and using toys'. 

They were read one message Thompson sent her in which he said, 'You do nothing for me.'

The message continued: 'We never have sex. You don't get dressed up or have your nails done etc.  I had more sex before I was with you.' 

The trial heard the couple, who also had a son, 16, were living 'separate lives but under the same roof' in the family home at the time of the alleged murder.

Ms Moore said Kim told her sister and friends that she was once raped by Thompson as a 'punishment' for having an affair. He referred to her as a 'cheating whore', the court heard. 

Evidence from friends and family will show how Kim went from being a 'healthy and happy, bubbly person' to a 'thin and self-doubting woman', she added. 

Kim told friends and colleagues that Thompson 'strangled, raped and choked' her, and many warned her to leave him, the court heard.

'He brutalised and assaulted her,' Ms Moore added. 'He accessed her phone and iPad to track her and copied items and messages so he could interrogate her. 

'He was coercively controlling her. What she did, and ate, he even went through the bins to check on her.' 

The court heard the murder victim had to account for her shopping with receipts. 

Nottingham Crown Court heard police have recovered hundreds of hours of recordings dating between March 2024 and August 7 last year – just 24 hours before Kim's death. 

There were at least 81 days' worth of recordings, jurors were told. 

The prosecutor added: 'She would stop confiding in messages because she knew he would track her phone and read what she said. 

'One friend said: 'He really got into her head and made her feel less of a human being. It was awful to watch.'' 

The court heard Thompson considered Kim a 'poor wife' and a 'narcissist' and even started an affair with a mutual colleague, sending the woman flowers at the office and openly kissing her at work. 

Jurors were told Kim had resorted to storing her diary, bank cards and other personal effects at work and had secretly opened a bank account in readiness of her new life away from Thompson.  As she was getting divorced, she had also begun using her maiden name of Bounds, jurors were told. 

But Ms Moore said: 'Right up to her death and in the middle of their divorce he spent his time… tracking a woman he said he wanted out of his life.'

Ms Moore told the jury: 'There were a number of things Kim said to people and no doubt Mr Thompson will say they were fabricated to make him look like a bad husband. 

'You will have to decide whether what she was saying over a period of ten years or more were made up to make him look bad and her look good.' 

Thompson, of Northampton, denies murder, rape and two counts of perverting the course of justice. 

The case continues.