A friend of Northampton woman Kimberley Thompson told a jury she was ‘petrified’ to leave her husband and believed he would kill her before she could do so.

Giving evidence at Nottingham Crown Court on Tuesday June 9, the long-term friend described what she said were years of abuse, controlling behaviour and violence during the couple's relationship.

The witness told jurors that Kim spoke to her about alleged rapes, physical assaults and fears for her safety, as well as an incident in which Thompson allegedly demanded £1,000 from a younger man who had been messaging her.

55-year-old Michael Thompson, of Pinewood Road, pleaded not guilty to the rape and murder of 43-year-old Kimberley Thompson, who was found dead at a home in Pinewood Road on August 9, 2025.

placeholder image — Nottingham Crown Court

Thompson appeared at Northampton Crown Court on December 16, 2025, when he also pleaded not guilty to two additional charges of committing an act with intent to pervert the course of public justice.

The trial is expected to last around six weeks and the jury members were sworn in on Thursday, May 21, ahead of the prosecution opening on Tuesday, May 26.

In cross-examination by the prosecution, the friend said: “I would see Kim every week. They had a lot of arguments, which got bad quite quickly. She said he had hit her on the face and on the body."

Asked whether she spoke to Kim before she was due to get married in 2006, the friend said: "I did, yes. I said she didn't need to go through with the wedding if she didn't want to. She said, 'I'm in too deep now, I can't not go through with it'."

The friend said she received a call from Kim in the middle of the night several years ago and she was ‘extremely distressed’.

The witness said: "Kim said Thompson had raped her on the floor of a bedroom. She would normally go to that bedroom because that was her safe place. He would not normally attack her there. He had done it numerous times. Even when she was not feeling well he would still force himself on to her. She was so upset. He would demand sex all the time from her even when she didn't want to do it."

The court heard how Kim started getting attention from a younger man around 2006.

The friend said: "He was checking through her phone and found messages. He was always looking and tracking her. She was always concerned about that. We would not normally talk to each other through messages in case he would see."

In response to finding the messages, the witness said: "He went mental. He assaulted her. She was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything without his permission.

"This guy was just being nice to her. She said she had not been used to someone being kind to her for so long."

Asked what Kim said, the witness said: "Thompson said he was going to kill this man if he didn't give her £1,000."

This led to the witness pretending to be the young man's friend. A meeting was organised for Ms Gordon and Thompson to meet outside Weston Favell Upper School, as it was known at the time, where £1,000 was handed over to Thompson in a brown envelope.

She said: "I was extremely nervous. He always intimidated me."

The court heard how there was no verbal communication between the two, but Thompson had written notes on an iPad and flicked through them. One of the notes, the court heard, said the man needed to leave Kim alone or he would kill him.

Thompson denies this meeting took place.

The court then heard that, following that event and within the same year, Thompson started seeing someone at their joint workplace while the pair were still together.

The witness said: "Kim was extremely upset and that everyone knew that it was going on."

The affair lasted around six months, the court heard.

Asked about seeing any injuries on Kim's body, the friend said: "I saw bruises on her legs, arms and torso on separate occasions. She told me Thompson had done that to her. He would grab her by the arm, push her. He would pull her around by the legs. She would say he had gone mental one night, that he attacked her and pulled her around."

She added: "He would smell her knickers to check she had not been with other men. Kimberley told me on numerous occasions that had happened."

She was asked if she asked Kim whether she would ever leave Thompson. She said: "On multiple occasions she said, 'I am in too deep'. She was petrified to leave him. She said he would kill her before she went."

Asked whether Kim took any steps with her in case that happened, the friend said: "Yes, she wrote letters and asked me to keep them at my house. I never read the letters. She handed me a wad of letters in an envelope and she asked me to keep them at my mum's house so if anything happened to her there were her thoughts in there. As I hadn't read the letters, I didn't know what was in them, but I knew why she had given them to me."

Asked whether she had tried to find the letters since learning of Kim's death, the woman said: "I have, yes. I haven't found them unfortunately. They were at my mum's house but she passed away in 2019. I would say the letters were put there in 2012 or 2013."

Asked about what Kim said regarding the suicide of her sister, the witness said: "Kim understood why her sister did what she had done but, because of the aftermath and how upsetting it was, that she would never do that [take her own life]."

Asked about a Facebook post left on Kim's Facebook, her last ever one on that profile before her death, which said "drinking too much", the witness said: "I thought that was completely strange as soon as I saw it. That wasn't something Kim would post on Facebook. She'd never put anything like that on there."