DETECTIVES hunting the killer of a Scots banker who was gunned down on his doorstep are using the Friends Reunited website in an attempt to solve the crime.

Police believe that school friends of Alistair Wilson, 30, from Nairn, could provide a vital breakthrough in the investigation.

Despite an exhaustive inquiry involving dozens of officers — who have delved into Wilson’s finances, his professional and private life and interviewed hundreds of people including family, friends and local residents — a motive for the killing last November has yet to be established.

Detectives are now attempting to contact former students at Garnock Academy in Kilbirnie and Stirling University to identify former girlfriends, friends and acquaintances.

Such is the level of importance attached to Wilson’s past friendships that an officer from Northern constabulary, which is handling the investigation, has been assigned to pursue all leads. He is liaising directly with Friends Reunited staff, who are understood to have provided confidential information about hundreds of members. Detectives have already started tracking them down for interview.

The new line of inquiry comes as an independent review of Northern’s handling of the investigation by senior officers from Grampian constabulary finishes this week. It is expected to urge detectives to give higher priority to certain aspects of the investigation.

“We still don’t know why he was killed. We started off with immediate friends and associates but we are now having to probe deeper and go further back into his past,” said Detective Chief Inspector Peter MacPhee, who is leading the investigation.

“The people he knew at university and before could hold the clue to why he was killed. We are using the Friends Reunited site to identify people who knew him.”

Wilson was shot after his wife Veronica answered the door to a short, stocky man in his late thirties.

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