AN aspiring model was working as a prostitute when she met her future husband who is accused of murdering her, a court heard today.

Paul Grabham, aged 25, of Rosehill Terrace, Swansea, married Kirsty within three months of meeting her in autumn 2007.

He moved into her Swansea flat where both worked as prostitutes, the jury was told.

But the couple had a violent relationship and were at “loggerheads” with each other from the beginning, Greg Taylor QC, prosecuting, told the jury as a four-week trial opened at Swansea Crown Court.

Mr Taylor said they would hear evidence of Grabham lifting his wife off the ground by the neck with one hand during an argument.

On another he violently held her down until she wet herself, Mr Taylor said.

His wife was also known to be violent towards him and he occasionally sported facial cuts assumed to have been inflicted by her.

Her body was discovered in a suitcase dumped under a bridge near the M4 at Bridgend on April 6 last year.

The 24-year-old had been reported missing by Grabham a week before and had last been seen after a night out in Swansea.

Grabham denies a single charge of murder.

Mr Taylor briefly sketched out how the couple met and lived together.

He said they met in a massage parlour in Bridgend where Grabham was a customer and his future wife a working prostitute.

Grabham soon moved into the flat she had previously shared with a former husband but would “make himself scarce” when customers visited his wife.

“Paul Grabham also offered himself as a prostitute, offering several services to both men and women,” Mr Taylor said.

He said the couple had a joint website where they also sold their services together and separately.

“Their relationship was stormy. Paul gave the impression that he was possessive, often cuddling her.”

He said they were often heard arguing in the thin-walled flat they lived in by neighbours who became used to their rows.

On one occasion the couple were at a party in a friend’s home and got into a violent argument after both had taken drugs.

Grabham was then seen to hold his wife off the ground with one hand around her throat as he jammed her against the front door, Mr Taylor said.

He said one friend was so frightened that Mrs Grabham would be killed that she pleaded with Grabham to let her go.

The jury heard that the couple both used “dogging” websites seeking casual sex with strangers.

Grabham had 10 accounts on one site alone and his wife complained to friends that he had been using dogging sites without her.

In the weeks before she was killed, the couple split up but at the time she went missing they had got back together again.

On the evening of March 27 she went out with Grabham and friends to Swansea nightclub Play.

Both had taken cocaine and drink and the couple were later seen in the club in the middle of a heated argument.

Mr Taylor said Grabham went home early to the flat because he was working the next day.

His wife stayed out into the early hours of the morning, returning to her flat via a friend’s house by taxi.

She is known to have sent a text to a friend to say she had arrived home safely and that Grabham was asleep on the settee.

Neighbours later told police of hearing an argument and a number of thuds and bumps.

One told police he heard what he thought was Mrs Grabham making a “stifled” sound “as if she had her mouth covered”.

The prosecution case is that what they were hearing was her murder being carried out.

They say that Grabham went on to hide his wife’s body in a suitcase, which was later dumped alongside the M4 near Bridgend.

It was discovered by a passing lorry driver 10 days after she was last seen.

Grabham told friends that his wife must have returned while he was asleep on the settee but had since left him.

He said she had taken cash, her hair straighteners and a bag of clothes.

Two days after the alleged murder, he reported his wife’s disappearance and police launched a missing persons hunt.

Mr Taylor said Grabham told a local shopkeeper of his wife’s disappearance while he was buying toilet rolls and bleach.

He alleged they were bought and used to clean up the murder scene and had never been found, despite Grabham being arrested within days of their purchase.

The case continues.

Read a full report of the first day's evidence in Thursday's South Wales Evening Post.