Former police officer Timothy Brehmer’s sentence for the manslaughter of his long-term lover Claire Parry has been increased to 13-and-a-half years by the Court of Appeal.
Brehmer had previously admitted Ms Parry’s manslaughter, for which he was jailed for 10 and a half years in October.
Following a referral by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, the Court of Appeal increased his sentence by three years in a ruling on Friday.
The Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said that the sentencing judge, Mr Justice Jacobs, “gave too little weight to the aggravating factors he had identified”.
Lord Burnett said: “We quash the sentence of 10 and a half years imprisonment and substitute a sentence of 13 and a half years imprisonment.”
The Court of Appeal also rejected a bid by Brehmer to have his sentence reduced.
The former Dorset Police officer claimed at trial that he had accidentally inflicted the fatal injury during a “kerfuffle” as he tried to push Ms Parry out of his Citroen car.
Salisbury Crown Court heard evidence of Brehmer’s “womaniser” lifestyle, when he was dubbed a “man wh**e”, and had been cheating on his wife, also a police officer.
Mrs Parry had started to believe her marriage to Andrew Parry, also a Dorset Police officer, was coming to an end as well as her relationship with Brehmer.
She researched Brehmer on Facebook under a different name and became convinced he had had at least two other affairs.
Brehmer said that when Mrs Parry drove into the car park she was angry, and after she got into his vehicle she asked for his phone so she could look through his social media apps.
He said that at one point he stabbed his arm three times with a penknife but Mrs Parry “did not care”.
He said he demanded she get out of his car but she refused, so he first 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, from Hordle, Hampshire, was seconded to the National Police Air Service based at Bournemouth Airport at the time of the killing.
Mr Justic Jacobs told the court in December at the time of Brehemer’s sentencing, that a simple struggle did not the explain the severity of Ms Parry’s injuries.
The judge said: “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.
“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.”
