Jasvir Ram Ginday alleged to have strangled Varkha Rani at their home in Walsall months after marrying her in India

A bank worker strangled his wife and burnt her body in a garden incinerator months after marrying her to hide his sexuality, a court has heard.

Jasvir Ram Ginday is alleged to have told a neighbour he had set fire to "general rubbish" after killing Varkha Rani at their home in Walsall, West Midlands.

Opening the case against Ginday, who denies murder but has admitted manslaughter, prosecutor Deborah Gould alleged that the 29-year-old had tried to destroy his wife's body.

Jurors, who were warned that they may find aspects of the case distressing, heard that Ginday was arrested in September last year after police discovered the unrecognisable remains of his wife at their home in Walsall.

Rani, 24, married her eventual killer in India in March last year and moved to the UK to live with him in August after being granted a visa.

Claiming that Ginday had told a friend he was attracted to men in his university study group as early as 2008, Gould told jurors at Wolverhampton crown court: "Despite his sexual orientation, in October 2012 the defendant and his mother travelled to India to find him a wife. While he was there the defendant met and rejected several women before meeting Varkha Rani.

"No doubt to Varkha's family the defendant appeared to be a perfect match for their intelligent, well-educated, and attractive young daughter."

After her arrival in the UK on 10 August, Varkha was "in all senses a stranger in a strange land" and appeared to be isolated, friendless and alone. Meanwhile, Gould told the court, the defendant was "staring reality in the face" and would have had to explain any attempt to divorce his new bride.

Around a month before Varkha's death on 12 September last year, someone at the family home made an internet search for incinerators, the court heard.

Ginday initially told police his wife had walked out on him after "using" him to gain entry to the UK. But, the crown alleges, Ginday had bought a quantity of petrol and put his wife in the incinerator after strangling her with a metal pipe from a vacuum cleaner.

Gould added: "His ultimate intention, the crown suggests, was to play the role of victim safe in the knowledge that he could rely upon his married status as a permanent excuse for never having to have another relationship with a woman."

Ginday, who is alleged to have married to "conceal his homosexuality and please his parents", has also admitted perverting the course of justice by lying to police.

The trial continues.