'Controlling' husband accused of raping and murdering estranged wife before trying to cover it up threatened to kill suitor unless he paid £1,000, court hears

Published: 14:52, 9 June 2026 | Updated: 14:59, 9 June 2026 A 'controlling' husband who is accused of raping and murdering his estranged wife before 'staging a scene' in an attempt to get away with his alleged crimes threatened to kill another man who had 'shown an interest' in her - unless he handed over £1,000, a court heard today. Former doorman Michael Thompson is said to have snooped on, recorded and tracked wife Kimberley, who had taken a new boyfriend and was 'moving on' with her life. Nottingham Crown Court was told the 55-year-old 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 pair were sleeping in separate bedrooms at the time of the alleged murder last summer.  But prosecutor Miranda Moore KC told a jury Thompson raped and killed basketball coach Kim, 43 - then tried to cover his tracks by placing bottles of spirits and empty strips of medication by her bed in a bid to suggest she had committed suicide.  A picture of the couple on their wedding day and a photo montage of Kim's late sister, who took her own life ten years previously, were also found on the bed, where paramedics and police discovered her body after Thompson dialled 999 just after 6am on August 9 last year.  However, Ms Moore said Thompson had set up the objects in the room in a bid to avoid responsibility for Kim's murder - with emergency services workers who attended the house in Northampton 'entirely taken in by the charade'.  She added officers 'took the view that this was a drink and drugs incident – a suicide attempt or an unfortunate accident'.  Kimberley Thompson's maid of honour told the court the mother was 'not allowed to go anywhere or do anything' without Thompson's permission Michael Thompson 'set a scene' by placing alcohol bottles, empty pill packets and photographs in the room where his estranged wife's body was found, jurors were told Today (WED), a close friend of Kimberley's told jurors how before her death Kim had described to her how Thompson beat and raped her during their marriage, and 'went mental' when he checked her phone and saw a message from a younger man. Gemma Gordon, who was the maid of honour at the couple's wedding, said that as a result of the text, Thompson assaulted Kim, and she was 'not allowed to go anywhere or do anything without his permission.' She added: "Kimberley had told me (about the man). She had been experiencing such horribleness from Thompson, what she told me is that he was just being nice to her, and she said she had not been used to someone being kind to her for so long." Miss Gordon said Thompson threatened to kill the man if he didn't hand over £1,000 - a figure Kim ended up secretly paying to her husband out of her own savings account. The court heard she managed to get hold of another phone and pretended to be the other man to negotiate with Thompson - with Miss Gordon eventually meeting him outside a school to hand over the cash, which was in a brown envelope. Miss Gordon told jurors: "I was extremely nervous to meet him because he had always intimidated me.  "I got out of the car to meet him, and he was there. He was stood in front of me. There was no actual voice communication.  'He had written some paragraphs on one of the children’s notepads. He was flicking the pages, but doing it too fast, so I did not get to read what was on the paper. The basketball coach was in the process of divorcing her husband and had been set to move out of the marital home "It was along the lines of he (the other man) needs to leave Kim alone, or he will kill him." Miss Gordon told the court how even before Kim and Thompson married, she complained of him hitting her on the face and body, but said she had to go through with the wedding as she was 'in too deep'. And the jury was told Kim at times had bruises over her body, including a black eye. Miss Gordon said: "She said he had inflicted them on her. I saw them on her legs, arms, torso, all on separate occasions. "He would just grab her by the arms, push her, pull her around by the legs." Thompson told police he went downstairs after Kim sent him a message suggesting she wanted sex.  He claimed to have 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.'  The prosecutor added that police officers allowed undertakers to remove Kim's body before Thompson was left to 'clean up' the 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.'  Thompson 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.  The trial heard the couple were living 'separate lives but under the same roof' in the family home at the time of the alleged murder.  Thompson, of Northampton, denies murder, rape and two counts of perverting the course of justice.  Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.