An evil ex-copper brutally killed his loving wife just seconds after she asked if he still loved her.
Retried police inspector Keith Farquharson, 60, savagely choked wife Alice at their Aberdeen home before trying to dupe detectives.
He devised an elaborate story that Alice, 56, had banged her head in the bedroom while he was in the shower.
But yesterday, a jury at the High Court in Glasgow rejected his lies and found the love cheat dad-of-three guilty of murder.
The couple’s children, chemical engineer Joanna, teacher Sarah and son Kerr, who is in the RAF, were in court for the verdict.
Minutes later, they said: “At times since our mum’s death and as we spoke about what lay ahead of us, we would catch ourselves and ask, ‘can you believe that this has happened?’
“Our family will never be the same again and we cannot begin to describe the devastating impact this tragedy has had on us.”
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Detective Inspector Gary Winter said: “On the day of Alice’s death, Farquharson deceived paramedics, police officers, his friends and, above all, his own family.”
The major crime investigator added, of Alice’s children: “Although the verdict can’t change what happened, I hope the outcome gives them some sense of justice for their mum.”
Farquharson was dogged by string of sex scandals at the former Grampian Police force and eventually quit in disgrace 10 years ago.
Alice, an adored primary school teaching assistant, stood by her husband during his lengthy suspension from duty.
He started his own taxi business using his silver Mercedes with personalised number plate. But last summer, on August 29, their 33-year marriage ended in Alice’s murder.
Alice had suspicions Farquharson was seeing another woman again.
Giving evidence in his defence, Farquharson told jurors he had a number of affairs.
He had a relationship with another woman, which ended in 2008 when Alice and his family found out.
The trial heard how Alice texted her husband in 2016 saying: “I love you. Just want you to love me too.”
But he had flings with two women in 2018 and “sexually explicit” messages were discovered on his phone.
He told how the affair with a previous girlfriend was rekindled last year – a woman Alice was found to have made internet searches for.
On the morning of the murder, Farquharson got up to start his shift as a school bus driver. As she lay in bed, Alice asked him: “Do you love me?”
Farquharson “groaned” before claiming his wife slapped him.
The ex-traffic officer then claimed a struggle ensured and he put his hand over Alice’s mouth to stop her screaming.
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Farquharson claimed: “It was as if she started to choke. When I let go, she just rolled off the bed.”
He made a panicked 999 call but medics were unable to save Alice who had suffered “mechanical asphyxia”.
Farquharson then spun a web of lies to relatives claiming he had discovered Alice stricken in the bedroom.
But at his trial, he confessed: “I continued with the lie because I was in a state of shock. I felt guilty and did not want my family to know.”
Detectives initially treated the death as “non-suspicious”. But Inspector Christopher Kerr, one of the first officers on the scene, pushed for further inquiries.
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He insisted a post-mortem should be “expedited immediately”, eventually leading to a murder probe.
Farquharson repeatedly sobbed in the witness box, insisting he did not mean to kill Alice. But a pathologist concluded Alice’s neck had been compressed and that bruises on her face were consistent with gripping.
The court heard Alice must have been “fighting for her life”.
Farquharson – whose guilty plea to the lesser charge of culpable homicide had earlier been rejected – faces a life sentence when he returns to the dock next month.
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