A pharmacist killed his wife by strangling and suffocating her with a Tesco Bag For Life, a court has heard.
Mitesh Patel, 37, denies murdering his wife Jessica, 34, who was strangled to death in their home on May 14.
He was found with three scratches on his neck on the night his wife was killed in their Victorian red-brick house, Teesside Crown Court was told.
The couple worked together at a pharmacy.
Nicholas Campbell QC, prosecuting, said the husband claimed he came in from a walk in the Linthorpe area of Middlesbrough to find the house had been burgled.
Mrs Patels wrists had been bound with duct tape which, the prosecution said, the husband had done after he killed her.
The barrister said: Jessica Patel had been killed as a result of pressure being brought to bear on her neck. She was strangled.
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The prosecution case was that a plastic shopping bag, ironically a Tesco Bag For Life, was used both as a ligature and to suffocate her.
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After killing her, Patel stage-managed the scene by ransacking the house, jurors were told.
But he left religious artefacts in the houses prayer room, items he had previously included in a list of things he wanted to take with him when he emigrated to Australia, Mr Campbell said.
He left the house after killing her and was noticed to be behaving strangely, the court heard.
He then returned home, tried to hide the hard drive of the house CCTV system in a suitcase of clothes under a mattress, and only four minutes after he got home did he call 999.
By then, his wife had been dead for an hour.
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Mr Campbell said he wanted to start a new life with the man of his dreams, doctor Amit Patel, and wanted to use the insurance money to set up his new home.
Jurors were also told that Patel had used the Grindr app behind his wifes back to meet men for sex.
A text conversation between the two men in 2012, the year they met, was seen by Mrs Patel but it did not cause the breakdown of their marriage.
His wife also found graphic sexual pictures of men on his phone, but Patel dismissed them as banter.
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Amit Patel moved to Australia, but the two men continued contact and discussed bringing up a child conceived by Mrs Patel, the court heard.
Analysis of internet searches show that in January 2013, Patel looked up I need to kill my wife, insulin overdose and hiring hitman UK.
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When he was arrested, police found insulin in syringes in his laptop bag.
In the same month she was killed, Patel told a neighbour his wife was very trusting and that one day she would end up getting murdered, Mr Campbell said.
And during a family holiday that same month, he messaged Amit Patel to say: You know this plan, do you think we will succeed?
Amit Patel replied: Only you know the answer.
The trial continues.
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