A man murdered his partner by strangling her at her North Wales home and then wrapped her naked body in plastic and left it covered in debris in a trailer, it was alleged.

Anthony James Bird, aged 48, had found out that his wife was having an affair, it was claimed.

He misled the police, her family and friends and even tried to assist in the search for mother of two Tracy Kearns, said prosecuting barrister Ian Unsworth QC at Mold Crown Court.

But all the time he knew that she was lying hidden in the trailer, he told the jury.

Mr Unsworth said that the defendant denied the murder of Tracy Kearns, 43, at the home they shared in Cader Avenue in Kinmel Bay, between May 7 and May 11 but accepted that he was responsible for her death.

Opening the case to the jury, Mr Unsworth said that it was the prosecution case that the defendant attacked and strangled her to death.

“That attacker was her partner, the defendant wrapped her body in plastic, and later removed her body from the house,” he said.

Her naked body was left concealed under debris in a trailer.

If his ultimate plan met with success, the jury could be satisfied that her body would have been moved and destroyed in some way.

“She would have for ever been regarded as a missing person,” said Mr Unsworth.

It was, he said, a cold and undignified end to a life cut short.

“It was a killing that was as contemptuous  for her body as it was as ruthless in its execution,” he said.

Her family, friends and the police searched for her and the defendant played along with them.

Mr Unsworth said he told “lie after lie” and even sent a message to her phone.

He took part in various steps to try and find her – all at a time when he knew she was lying dead, wrapped up and concealed in the trailer, covered in debris.

There was no issue that the defendant was responsible for her death, he said.

“He now accepts that he caused her death,” said Mr Unsworth, who said he anticipated that he would claimed that he had suffered a loss of control.

”We the prosecution say that you can be sure that the defendant did not suffer a loss of control,” he said.

Mr Unsworth told the jury that he was not out of control when he used severe force to squeeze the life out of his partner, when he concealed the body and when he took deliberate steps to mislead the police, her family and friends.

The couple had been in a relationship for seven years and had two daughters.

They both worked at the Sandy Cove Club in Kinmel Bay but Mr Unsworth said that the relationship had deteriorated and that she had started a relationship with another man, Andrew Jones.

The defendant got to know about it, the couple discussed it, and he appeared to accept that it was over.

On the face of it he maintained that he did not want any arguments .

But he was anything but pleased at the situation when Tracy Kearns rejected him and she would she would pay with her life, he said.

On May 7 it was alleged that he had been waiting near her mother’s home in Llandudno when she and Mr Jones returned home from a weekend together in Blackpool.

He spoke to Mr Jones and appeared to take it well, but asked them not to “rub his nose in it”

He did not want her to move out or matters to be disrupted for their children.

She believed that he had taken it well but Mr Unsworth said that nothing could be further from the truth.

That night she met with Mr Jones at the club where she worked, she left and CCTV footage of her leaving was played to the court,

Mr Unsworth said that they were the last images of her seen alive.

It appeared she travelled to the Rhyl area and met with Mr Jones before returning home.

It is alleged that he took the children to school, was seen moving back and forth with the trailer, and the prosecution said that in likelihood it was on the Wednesday, May 10, that he moved the body.

Messages to her from Mr Jones had remained unread. Her mobile phone had never been found, the jury was told.

He told police that she left in the early hours of the Monday morning, came back in because the car had a puncture, but then walked away.

But the prosecutor said that was part of an elaborate lie that he was weaving to explain the presence of her car.

The trial, before Mr Justice Clive Lewis is proceeding.