A FORMER police station cleaner faces life in prison after smothering his fiancee in a fit of anger during a camping weekend.

Controlling Christopher Cole, 31, killed Sarah Clayton, 21, after shouting "If you don't shut up, I'll shut you up".

Cole, who worked as a cleaner at Sussex Police stations, pretended to do CPR on his fiancee as emergency services raced to a seaside campsite.

He had dialled 999 after spending the night in the tent with her body.

Cole told a jury at Lewes Crown Court he was too emotional to carry on and he had no regrets.

"I did what I thought was best at the time and I don’t regret any of it,” he said.

A jury of 11 convicted him of murder.

Cole held his head in his hands and fought back tears as he waited for the verdict.

He looked to the public gallery for support as he was taken down to the cells with his belongings in a supermarket carrier bag.

Ms Clayton was found dead at the Buckle campsite in Seaford after other campers heard choking noises after Cole shouted: “If you don’t shut up, I will shut you up.”

Paramedics found her unresponsive at 6.43am on a Sunday in May 2018.

Campers heard sounds of pots and pans being thrown about in what they believed was a drunken argument.

Police found signs of a disturbance in the tent.

Duncan Atkinson QC for the prosecution told the court: “A number of witnesses heard sounds of the defendant becoming more agitated or aggressive as this argument went on.

“Two of them heard the defendant, in an angry tone, say that he would make Sarah stop.

“It was after this threat to make her stop that Sarah became quiet.”

Forensic examination of Ms Clayton’s body could not find the exact cause of death.

They could not rule out Cole smothered her with a pillow.

He denied murdering her in a fit of anger.

The jury heard he used choking as a way of controlling previous girlfriends.

Earlier, the court heard another ex-girlfriend had accused Cole of grabbing her by the neck.

"You had become angry with Sarah and had sought to exert control over her by restricting her ability to breathe, as you had done in past," Mr Atkinson told him.

"I disagree with you totally," Cole said.

"When daylight came, you realised what you had done and by that Sunday evening you were seeking to protect yourself from what you had done, to hold back answers until you could think of better ones," Mr Atkinson said.

"I don't agree with you," Cole said.

"I've got a mind of my own.

"No one can lead me.

"Everyone makes their own choices in life.

"I can't explain why it ended like it ended," Cole said.

Cole said his family had taken Ms Clayton in when she was homeless and using drugs.

He said she was given strict rules about staying away from drugs or she would be thrown out of his parents' house in Littlehampton.

Mr Atkinson described Cole as controlling and told the jury he smothered his fiancee in a fit of anger.

Other campers found him in a distressed state 43 seconds into the 999 call.

“You were stressed because you knew what you had done. You bitterly regretted it,” Mr Atkinson said.

“You knew what you had done. You knew when you had done it.

“You knew there was no point in trying CPR.

“You knew you had killed her and that’s what you had meant to do.”

“No, you are wrong,” Cole said.

He told the court the couple had argued after coming back to find their tent waterlogged.

“What was it you used to smother her?” Mr Atkinson asked.

“I never used anything at all, I never smothered her. I don’t know how she died,” Cole said.

He told Lewes Crown Court his family had taken Ms Clayton in when she was using drugs and living in a tent.

Cole, of Clun Road, Wick, Littlehampton, said they had been in a relationship for more than five months before her death and planned to marry.

He will be sentenced next week.