A “CONTROLLING” husband raped then fatally strangled his wife before “staging a scene” to try and get away with it, a court has heard.
Michael Thompson, 55, has been accused of murder, rape and perverting the course of justice – by setting up his wife’s body to look like a suicide.
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Thompson faces charges of murder, rape and perverting the course of justice Credit: Instagram
Michael Thompson, 55, is accused or murdering his wife, Kimberley Thompson, 43 Credit: Instagram
Thompson claimed he had found the lifeless body of his wife, Kimberley Thompson, 43, in the early hours of the morning on August 9 last year.
He called emergency services, telling police he had found her dead on the floor of their home in Northampton, surrounded by pills and alcohol.
But it is alleged that the “charade” fell apart after a post-mortem revealed Kimberley had no evidence of alcohol and found only low levels of caffeine, paracetamol and codeine in her body.
The jury at Nottingham Crown Court heard that Thompson and Kimberley were living under the same roof but had initiated divorce proceedings.
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Prosecutors told the court how Kimberley had complained of abuse for years Credit: Instagram
The jury heard Thompson allegedly raped and throttled his wifeCredit: Instagram
Thompson has denied the charges of murder, rape and two counts of perverting the course of justice.
Prosecutors told how she had spent 10 years confiding in family and friends that she was suffering physical and emotional abuse and controlling behaviour at the hands of her husband.
“Kim would tell friends and colleagues Thompson had… strangled her, choked her, raped her, brutalised her and assaulted her,” prosecutor Miranda Moore KC told the court.
“Many of her friends told her to leave him or he will end up killing her.”
Thompson claimed his wife had sent him a sexually explicit text and was “merry” before they had sex, and he later found her unresponsive.
But Ms Moore set out a very different version of events to those innocent claims Thompson told police.
She alleged that on the night Kimberley tragically died, the defendant had been in his room watching sexual videos of his ex,
He was allegedly “stewing” about the fact she had a new boyfriend, was planning to move out and had asked for around £65,000 in their divorce.
After he called 999 at around 5.40am, paramedics found Ms Thompson with an injury to her mouth, surrounded by empty pill packets and bottles of vodka and gin.
There was also an array of photographs of her, her husband, and her late sister, who had taken her own life a decade before.
Ms Moore set out the prosecutions timeline of alleged events, arguing Thompson had “painted a wholly false picture” of that night.
She told the court: “He found out about [her boyfriend], that she was going away with him, that she was taking money from him and getting on with her life and this infuriated him.
“He goes down, rapes her, kills her then sets about trying to hide what he’d done and that included making those Facebook and Snapchat entries.
“He must have also staged the scene in respect of the photographs – they lived elsewhere in the house and the alcohol had been moved to the bedroom from where they lived in the house.”
The prosecutor added: “Kim died because Michael Thompson manually suffocated her. He raped her, manually suffocated her and set about perverting the course of justice.
“The cover-up may be the most powerful evidence against Michael Thompson. Those things must have been placed there for a purpose.”
Kimberley had married Thompson in 2006, and the couple had two teenage children.
But Ms Moore told the court that his behaviour had been violently abusive and deeply controlling.
Kimberley had told friends he had pushed her from an upstairs window and planted listening and tracking devices in her car.
She had also previously described being choked, held by the throat and forced to have sex with Thompson.
Police had recovered “literally hundreds” of hours of recordings that were saved and edited by Thompson, the latest on August 7 2025, just days before her body was found, Ms Moore said.
Thompson has denied the charges of murder, rape and two counts of perverting the course of justice.
The trial continues.
