Retired policeman who choked wife to death gets 15 years
A RETIRED police inspector who murdered his wife has been sentenced to at least 15 years behind bars.
Keith Farquharson, 60, choked Alice, his wife of 33 years, last August 29, moments after she asked him if he still loved her.
Mrs Farquharson, 56, had previously stood by her husband despite his serial adultery as well as him being demoted at work for sending a sleazy poem to a female officer.
Farquharson was jailed for life yesterday and must serve a minimum of 15 years before being considered for release.
He was convicted last month of murdering Mrs Farquharson in the bedroom of their home in Aberdeen.
Passing sentence yesterday at the High Court in Glasgow, Lady Stacey told him: ‘You had been a police officer for many years. It is distressing a man who held such a position should behave like this and commit such a serious crime. What you did has destroyed your family.’
The couple’s three grown-up children – chemical engineer Joanna, teacher Sarah and son Kerr, who is serving in the RAF – were not in court for the sentencing. Farquharson had earlier told jurors how he had a number of affairs. He had flings with two women in 2018.
The court heard that ‘sexually explicit’ messages had been discovered on his phone. He previously had a relationship with another woman, which ended in 2008 when his teaching assistant wife found out. But the affair had been rekindled last year after Farquharson met the woman while watching rugby in a pub.
Mrs Farquharson was found to have made internet searches for the woman last year.
Her husband admitted that his wife did not ‘trust’ him. On the morning of the murder, he got up to start his shift as a school bus driver, having retired as a police traffic officer in 2010.
As she lay in bed, Mrs Farquharson asked him: ‘Do you love me?’ After he groaned, she slapped him.
He insisted they had struggled and he put his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming. He added: ‘It was as if she started to choke. I knew something was wrong. When I let go she just rolled off the bed.’
He repeatedly sobbed in the witness box as he insisted the death was ‘totally accidental’.
But a pathologist concluded Mrs Farquharson’s neck had been compressed and that bruises on her face were consistent with gripping.
Farquharson’s QC, Ian Duguid, yesterday said the victim impact statements from the couple’s children were ‘moving’. He added: ‘They state the family unit has been shattered by these events.’
A statement previously released by the family paid tribute to Mrs Farquharson, saying: ‘She was an incredibly kind and caring person, with a great love for life and the people in it.’
‘Destroyed your family’