Christopher Trybus, of Swindon, Wiltshire, is accused of the manslaughter of Tarryn Baird, who died by hanging in November 2017 aged 34.
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A man accused of causing his wife to take her own life by abusing her has denied using a belt to choke her during sex and said she would ask him to choke her.
Christopher Trybus, of Swindon, Wiltshire, is accused of the manslaughter of Tarryn Baird, who died by hanging in November 2017 aged 34.
The 43-year-old also faces charges at Winchester Crown Court of controlling and coercive behaviour and two charges of rape.
The coercive control charge alleges Trybus controlled Ms Baird through using and threatening violence towards her, sexually assaulting her, monitoring her whereabouts, limiting access to finance, threatening to reveal private information to her family and isolating her from her family.
The jury was played an audio clip recorded by Ms Baird engaged in what the defendant described as “foreplay” with him which was discovered by her mother after her death.
He has told the court he had bought a kit from Amazon which included cuffs, rope, neck collar with leash, ball gag, a whip and blindfold.
Trybus said the audio clip started with him saying: “What’s going on there love?” and during the recording Ms Baird can be heard to be grunting and gasping loudly.
He said: “The sense of it wasn’t unusual, not all the times it was like that, it wasn’t unusual, not all the time was it like that.”
Trybus continued: “It may be in this instant a bit more unusual but at the time it didn’t seem unusual to me, but maybe put on a bit.”
The defendant added: “We always joked we had a safe word, maybe it came from a movie, the safe word was ‘pineapple’, she never used it, maybe out and about, joking about it.”
He said that slapping noises would have been him “spanking her on the bum” with his hand, which he said was “an aspect of what we did”.
Trybus told the court he said at one point: “Where are those handcuffs?” and added: “She was struggling and I want to do something else, progress to sex, there isn’t usually a lot of foreplay.”
He said he did not think the noises made by Ms Baird were from pain, and added: “I guess if she said ‘that hurts’ or something, I would have stopped. I do not think it was pain.”
The court has heard Ms Baird had alleged Trybus had used a belt around her neck, which he denied but said he had used his hands because “she wanted me to choke her”, although he had not used pressure to hurt or cause her to lose consciousness.
The trial has also heard Ms Baird told medical professionals she had fainted after sex, and Trybus said he was aware on one occasion when she had fainted on the landing and another in the shower.
Trybus said he had not believed at the time that Ms Baird had been “struggling” with drinking and had felt mental health issues and PTSD – which the court has heard was from witnessing violent robberies in South Africa where they grew up – were the “root cause” of her problems.
He said: “It sounds horrible, maybe I didn’t believe she really had any issues and maybe she did, I wouldn’t say that to her, I would just try to help her.”
Trybus said he tried to dissuade Ms Baird from buying prescription medication online and said: “Firstly I said to her ‘You do not know what is in this stuff, it’s not coming from Boots, it’s coming from god knows where, if you need it your doctor will prescribe it to you, don’t do that’.”
The defendant said they used an app to track each other’s phones and added: “It was much easier for her to track me and also with her fainting it was nice to know where she was if need be.”
The court has heard Ms Baird had reported to medical professionals repeatedly suffering injuries.
He said she had told him various reasons for the injuries, such as she had “slipped down the stairs” or in the bath, and she had said she “bruised easily”.
Trybus said she also suffered a “few bumps and bruises” from boxing classes she attended, and she had also had bruising from using a foam roller to massage her muscles after going to the gym.
Trybus, a software consultant, denies the charges and the trial continues.
