A jealous gardener bludgeoned his teacher lover to death after discovering she was having an affair with another man, a court heard.

Lynda Casey, from south Croydon, was lured to Banstead Woods where she was attacked by her married lover Peter Ling following a sex session, the jury was told.

The 54-year-old horticultural teacher’s naked body was found partially covered with leaves in Banstead Woods on August 13, two days after being reported missing by her family.

Mrs Casey, who taught at the Sutton College of Learning for Adults (Scola), had suffered “massive damage to her forehead, face and skull consistent with blunt force trauma”, the jury heard.

Mr Ling, 50, who runs his own gardening firm in Wallington and was one of Mrs Casey’s students, appeared at the Old Bailey on Tuesday accused of murder.

Mrs Casey, who was estranged from her husband but still shared a home in The Drive, Coulsdon, had been having an affair for more than two years with Mr Ling, also married for 23 years.

John Coffey QC, prosecuting, told the court that on August 8 Mr Ling met with Mrs Casey at the Rambler’s Rest public house car park in Chipstead and walked for about a mile into Banstead Woods.

Once in the woods, Mr Ling asked his mistress for sex but afterwards he refused to let her put her clothes back on, the jury was told.

Mr Coffey said that Mr Ling had got wind of a second man in Mrs Casey’s life after he hacked her email account and began to question her, a court heard.

The court heard that Mr Ling felt “inadequate and inferior” compared to Mrs Casey’s other lover, named in court as Ian Tolfrey, whom she was “besotted” with.

Under police interview Mr Ling admitted that “something inside him snapped” and he went crazy, the jury was told.

He told officers that he had “picked up whatever was around and whacked her”. He added that he may have strangled her.

Mr Ling told detectives: “If you had asked me three weeks ago if I was a murderer I would have laughed”.

The night after Mrs Casey’s death Ling took his own wife Deborah to a pub in Chipstead and tried to patch up any differences they had.

Mr Coffey said that Mr Ling’s wife Deborah suspected he was having an affair.

The defendant told his spouse that “when you’ve had the same meal for 20 years sometimes you want something different”.

He eventually confessed to her that he was having an affair with Mrs Casey and that they had had a fight in the woods.

“But what if I have killed her?”, he told his wife, who advised him to tell the police.

Ling was arrested by police in Somerset on August 12 and Mrs Casey’s body was discovered by police sniffer dogs the next day.

A pathologist said the cause of Mrs Casey’s death was unascertainable. According to the report, Mrs Casey did not die of natural causes but died at the hands of another.

Ignatius Hughes QC, representing Mr Ling, said his client was provoked and should be found guilty of manslaughter, not murder.

The case, which is expected to last for a week, continues.