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Despite a long relationship, Mr Henton and Mrs Sutton, a widow, lived at separate addresses but saw each other every day. He was arrested a year after her murder after police secretly bugged his home and car to gather evidence against him.

Paul Lewis, QC, for the prosecution, said that over four days in January last year detectives amassed a total of more than 42 hours of secret recordings. The jury heard excerpts of the covert recording which, with forensic evidence, led to Mr Henton being charged with murder.

But the sound quality of large segments of the recordings was so poor, despite technical enhancement, that much of what was played in court was inaudible. As a result the jury were obliged to rely on a series of comprehensive bundles carrying written transcriptions of the recordings.

They were also given a schedule containing contested passages where prosecution and defence interpretations were set out side-by-side.

According to the prosecution’s interpretation Mr Henton is heard to say: "Good God alive. Don’t panic now. Police car I got. Good God I don’t believe I’ve done it."

A defence version of the same segment reads: "Good God alive. Police car I got... come on now, I’m coming," and is interspersed with what it takes to be coughing, a clunk and road noise.

Mr Lewis claimed the recordings, which included Mr Henton speaking at length to his cats Pudsey and Twinkie, contain a confession apparently made to the pets. The defence team, led by Elwen Evans QC, vehemently rejected the claims.

Ms Evans questioned Mr Henton for some time on his close relationship with the cats during the defence case. Mr Henton said: "To me, Joyce’s heart is still in those cats."

He said that he looked after them every day and described them as "indoor cats" which liked to stay inside.

He added: "They would say what happened that night. I have said it before. If only those cats could talk."

In her closing speech to the jury, Ms Evans said that her client was "mentally vulnerable" as a result of a stroke some years ago and was not capable of the kind of deception of which he was accused. She also said that the evidence showed overwhelmingly that Henton was a man "with no leaning whatsoever towards violence".

She added: "Do you think he is a cold, clever, calculating murderer who, within minutes of killing his beloved Joyce Sutton, was taking cold, clever, calculating steps to cover it up? Or do you think he is a man who, because of his vulnerabilities, has made himself a soft target?"

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