A graphic designer who reputedly worked for the Royal Opera House murdered his fiancée in the shower after she told him she was leaving him following her unhappiness at his cross-dressing fetish, a court heard yesterday.

Roderick Deakin-White, 38, bludgeoned Amy Parsons to death with a two-foot long metal bar in their east London apartment, Snaresbrook Crown Court was told.

Jurors heard the couple's six-year relationship deteriorated with Ms Parsons telling friends she had grown unhappy at Deakin-White's enjoyment of cross-dressing when they were intimate.

Days before she was murdered, Ms Parsons told Deakin-White she had started an affair with James Saunders, a colleague at the City-based insurance firm she worked at.

The court heard Deakin-White reacted by sending a number of disparaging messages to Mr Saunders in which he called him a “bastard” and a “creep”, and also told him “if he couldn't have her no one can”.