Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell has been remanded in custody at the High Court in Edinburgh after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from the political party. Murrell admitted the charges when he appeared at the court on Monday morning. He admitted an amended indictment which reduced the amount of the embezzled money down from more than £459,000.
The former chief executive, who is Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband, was charged with embezzling the funds from the Scottish National Party between August 2010 and October 2022. First Minister John Swinney said the embezzlement was a "terrible breach of trust" and an "overwhelming betrayal".
In January last year, Ms Sturgeon announced she and Murrell had "decided to end" their marriage. In a statement posted on social media Ms Sturgeon, who stepped down as an MSP ahead of the Holyrood election earlier this month, said her reaction was "difficult to put into words". "To be clear: I had no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever that he was using SNP funds for personal purposes."
Murrell’s conviction is the result of a police investigation called Operation Branchform, which was first launched in 2021. The operation investigated the SNP’s funding and finances and involved several high-profile arrests. The policing cost of the long-running investigation reached more than £2 million.
A £1,200 space telescope, a designer bread bin costing £60 and two toilet seats for nearly £70 are some of the items Peter Murrell bought using money he embezzled from the SNP. He also bought three designer manicure sets for nearly £294, DVDs of the Danish political thriller Borgen, a Grand Theft Auto V video game and a designer egg poacher set for nearly £24. Also among his purchases were a Jura Giga 5 Cromo coffee machine for nearly £3,232 - and a book of speeches by his estranged wife, Nicola Sturgeon.
Sentencing is due to take place on the 23rd of June.
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Peter Murrell, former CEO of the SNP, has pleaded guilty to embezzling over £400,000 in party donations over 12 years. He used the funds for luxury shopping and a motor home, falsifying documents to hide the theft. While his wife, former leader Nicola Sturgeon, denies any knowledge, the case raises serious questions about party governance and oversight.
Peter Murrell was at the heart of Scotland's party of government for more than two decades.
The chief executive of the SNP, his wife Nicola Sturgeon, party leader.
Today he walked into court to enter a plea of guilty.
When he left, he had been handcuffed and was in the back of a prison van.
We now know that over 12 years,
Murrell was embezzling more than £400,000 from party donations.
You burned the toast!
In 2015, our cameras were invited into Murrell's marital home.
I asked you to do one.
I was distracted.
What we can now report is he was already misusing SNP money during this time,
shopping for himself and others.
Luxury items from the likes of Harrods, John Lewis and SD Lauder
were being delivered to this very house.
Murrell then falsified invoices and documents
to make it all look like legitimate party expenses.
It's, you know, it's just one of those questions.
Murrell's scheme came crashing down with a police dawn raid three years ago.
Bags of items were taken away from SNP HQ in Edinburgh.
Murrell's infamous motor home was impounded,
bought with £125,000 of the SNP's money.
And, of course, that blue tent erected outside his house.
We now know police found enough evidence to convict Peter Murrell of embezzlement.
What we still don't know is how he was able to misuse
such a vast sum of money for so long
without the SNP officials noticing in the accounts
and without arousing the suspicion of the SNP leader,
who was, of course, his wife, Nicola Sturgeon,
sharing this house with him where an array of new purchases kept arriving.
The SNP's former treasurer and Nicola Sturgeon
were both arrested in Operation Branch form,
then released without charge.
In other words, I am completely in the clear.
Some in the SNP did try to raise concerns about the finances.
This leaked recording shows how they were met with the ire of the chief executive's wife.
You know, just be very careful, all of us,
about suggestions that there are problems with the party's finances
because we depend on donors to donate.
There are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party's finances.
There were, in fact, almost half a million pounds worth of reasons to be concerned.
Today, the SNP called a media conference,
but it was crashed by one of their own former MPs demanding answers.
I invite all of you, ladies and gentlemen of the press,
to have a look at what was really going on behind the scenes
and why this pattern of criminal behaviour was able to go on for more than a decade
without being detected,
going on under the nose of the party leader
who was married to the person who was doing it.
Joanna Cherry then made her own way into the media room
as the current SNP leader took questions.
Was it a mistake for the SNP to have allowed the chief executive
to be married to the leader of the party?
We recognise through all of our discussions
the centrality of the behaviour at stake here,
which is the criminal behaviour of Peter Murrell,
for which he is responsible and he will now have to face the consequences.
You don't recognise any governance as part of that?
When people were complaining,
they were complaining to the party chief executive's wife.
Well, I'm simply saying that we now have good and strong governance in place
to ensure that that can be assured to party members.
You haven't yet said sorry to the people who donated?
I'm sorry for what's happened.
I'm sorry to party members who feel that way,
but I'm one of them too.
Tonight, Nicola Sturgeon said in a statement,
I had no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever
that personal items had been purchased using SNP funds.
Peter Murrell was once half of the most powerful couple in Scotland.
He is now held on remand to be sentenced on the 23rd of June.
Peter Smith, ITV News, Edinburgh.
