Bill Walker MSP 'used a machine to record his wife's phone calls' A former wife of Bill Walker has told a court how he recorded her phone calls and made her sign an agreement to do all household chores. Diana Walker, 61, told Edinburgh Sheriff Court the MSP would listen back to conversations she had and would make notes about what she said. Mrs Walker also told the court she left her then husband for a short time before trying to reconcile with him. He would only get back together if she signed an agreement promising to do the shopping, cooking, cleaning and pay the utility bills. Mrs Walker - who also alleges her former husband repeatedly physically assaulted her - was giving evidence on the third day of Walker's trial. He has pleaded not guilty to 23 charges of assault and one charge of breach of the peace between January 1967 and January 1995. On Wednesday, Mrs Walker told depute procurator fiscal Les Brown the couple married in the late 1980s and just a few weeks before the wedding, Walker assaulted her. "He whacked me on my face so hard my head was spinning," she said. It was out of the blue, I didn't see it coming. It was full-force. On one occasion after they married she said she had to wear dark glasses and foundation to a restaurant to conceal a black eye he gave her during an argument at their home at Blair Logie, near Stirling. "We had a big row, he started shouting at me and then he thumped me one in the face," she said. Mrs Walker also told the court her husband had a bad temper and would shout at her during arguments. She said before they were divorced in January 1998, her husband would record telephone conversations that she had with friends with a machine. She said: "At the time, Mr Walker was unemployed and was spending a lot of time in the house. He was recording all my telephone calls. He had a machine that he used. He was recording all my telephone calls and he was making notes on them. Mrs Walker said she saw the notes her husband had been made about the calls. She added: "The notes would contain details of who called, what they had said and what I had said." Mrs Walker said she once left her husband but then reconciled with him. Walker insisted she would have to sign an "agreement" before the relationship could recommence. She added: "He posted an agreement to me. It stated that I would pay the utility bills, that I would the grocery shopping and the cleaning. I was also supposed to do the washing, ironing and chores. The court heard Mrs Walker had married Walker after leaving her husband in Swindon in January 1987. In 1990, she became involved in a custody battle in England over her son James. The court heard there were concerns at the time that Mr Walker had a violent temper but Mrs Walker told a social worker he was "mild mannered" and had an "unexceptional temper." When asked by defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin why she said he was mild mannered if he had abused her, Mrs Walker replied: "I was too scared to tell the truth." The court later heard that Walker was allegedly with another woman as his second wife, Anne Gruber, gave birth to the couple's third son Douglas. Former health visitor Mary Walker, 75, said she paid a professional visit to Mrs Gruber shortly after the birth of the couple's third son in the 1970s. She said she found Walker's wife "pale, unhappy-looking and shaking." "What I remember clearly is on the night Douglas was born Anne's husband wasn't available," she said. The health worker said Mrs Gruber had told her Walker had been "up to no good" elsewhere that night and that he was "physically and emotionally abusive." The trial before Sheriff Katherine Mackie continues.