Sturgeon’s estranged husband admits embezzling £400k from SNP

Desk report: Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband has admitted stealing £400,000 from the SNP over a 12-year period.

Peter Murrell, the SNP’s former chief executive, was led away in handcuffs and remanded into custody on Monday after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from the party between August 2010 and October 2022. He will be sentenced on June 23.

He was accused of using the money to buy a range of items, including a motorhome, two cars and a string of luxury goods, and falsifying accounting records in an attempt to cover up his crimes.

The guilty plea at Edinburgh’s High Court immediately triggered accusations that Ms Sturgeon must have known about Murrell’s wrongdoing, with politicians across the spectrum demanding answers about what she and the SNP knew before Monday’s hearing.

Ms Sturgeon, the former SNP leader and Scottish first minister, later insisted she did not know that Murrell had embezzled from the party.

She said she was “angry, hurt, sad and very distressed” by the guilty plea, and claimed she had been “misled” by Murrell, just as others were”.

She and Murrell separated last year.

Murrell was first arrested in April 2023 as part of the police investigation into the SNP’s finances and was charged in April 2024.

Ms Sturgeon was also questioned by detectives, but police have since confirmed she is no longer under investigation.

Murrell was accused of using party funds to buy a £124,550 motorhome for his personal use from a dealer in Staffordshire, and that he created false documentation “to portray the purchase as a legitimate party expense”.The indictment alleges that he stored the vehicle at his mother Margaret’s home in Dunfermline, Fife.

Murrell was further accused of using £57,500 of SNP money towards the purchase of an £81,000 Jaguar I-PACE car in 2019.

It was also alleged that he falsified an invoice “in an attempt to disguise the true nature” of that purchase, and that when the Jaguar was sold in 2021, more than £47,000 was paid into his personal bank account.

Murrell was also alleged to have embezzled £16,489 from the SNP in part payment for a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf purchased in Newbridge, Edinburgh, in 2016.

He admitted filing false business expense claims worth £18,408.91 between Jan 2019 and 2022, including £12,042 from Apple. The indictment said he used the latter proceeds to part-fund the purchase of the Jaguar.

The former SNP chief executive used party credit cards to fund £42,660.74 of purchases from Amazon between August 2010 and October 2022. The items purchased were “for your own personal use or the personal use of others”, the indictment said.