A FRIEND of a male prostitute accused of murdering his call-girl wife said he witnessed him grip her by the throat following a drugfuelled party.

Stephen Weaver-Davies told Swansea Crown Court the violence had sparked on March 15, 2008, more than a year before Kirsty Grabham's death — and just a month after the pair married.

Paul Grabham is accused of killing his 24-year-old wife at their top-floor flat in Rosehill Terrace, Mount Pleasant, last March, before putting her body in a suitcase and dumping it near the M4.

They both worked in the sex industry and were married in 2008 a few months after meeting at a brothel in Bridgend.

Mr Weaver-Davies said the incident happened when the couple had joined him and a few others at his former girlfriend's mother's home to celebrate his birthday. The group were drinking alcohol and had taken cocaine and ecstasy, before going to bed in the early hours of the morning.

But Mr Weaver-Davies said that a big row erupted between the Grabhams downstairs, and he got up to tell them to keep the noise down.

"That's when I saw Paul," he said.

"He was holding his head and he had her by the throat."

The jury heard Grabham had a red mark on his head from where Kirsty had thrown a full can of beer at him.

"He was leaning over her," said Mr WeaverDavies.

He said Kirsty was "slapping him and scramming him" and "screaming and shouting like hell" at him to let her go.

"As soon as Paul noticed I was there he let go and stepped away from her," said Mr Weaver-Davies.

An earlier witness Amin Marouf, said he saw Grabham on the morning of March 28 — the day he is alleged to have killed Mrs Grabham.

He said Grabham worked with him at his father's business Caterquip, and that his dad had phoned him when he hadn't arrived at work that morning.

The jury heard a start time hadn't been agreed for Grabham's shift that day, but that he generally wasn't the best timekeeper.

Mr Marouf said when he arrived, Grabham "seemed himself" and said he'd enjoyed his night out on the Friday.

"We joked (about him being late)," he said.

"He said that his wife had woken him up when my dad phoned him."

The court heard that when Grabham, reported his wife missing, he told police the last time he had seen her was at Swansea Play nightclub — not at their flat.

The case continues.