A former Aberdeen police officer accused of killing his wife had on a phone “sexually explicit” messages from another woman, a court heard.
An iPhone had been seized from Keith Farquharson during the probe into the death of Alice Farquharson last August.
Retired police inspector Farquharson, 60, is on trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
He denies murdering his 56-year-old wife at their home in Aberdeen’s Angusfield Avenue.
Ewan Stewart, who works for Police Scotland, helped examine the phones.
The court heard there appeared to be contact between Farquharson and an un-named female in 2018.
Prosecutor Alex Prentice QC asked the analyst: “Would it be right to say there followed a number of texts to and from the device used by the woman?
“These are extremely sexually explicit messages?”
Mr Stewart replied: “Yes, that would be my interpretation.”
The advocate then asked if the exchanges continued in a “similar fashion… lewd messages”.
Mr Stewart said: “They are suggestive.”
The trial was told Alice’s phone was also examined during the probe.
A number of internet searches were made on the handset the night before she was allegedly murdered.
These included “bidding for a house in Shetland” and “houses to bid for Shetland”.
The court later heard how Dr Leigh-anne Deboys helped carry out a post mortem examination on Alice’s body. She was found to have suffered “mechanical asphyxia”.
When asked what it was, she replied: “For some reason she has been prevented from breathing oxygen as usual.
“Something from the outside has been pressing her neck.”
Among other marks to the body, Dr Deboys’ report detailed there were bruises on Alice’s cheek.
She said this suggested “blunt-force trauma” and could be explained “by compression or gripping”.
The murder charge alleges Farquharson seized hold of Alice and struggled with her before compressing her neck and face.
It is further claimed he left her unconscious after “restricting her breathing” by covering her nose and mouth.
He is then said to have caused blunt-force injury “by means unknown”.
The trial, before Lady Stacey, continues.
