Nicola Sturgeon has admitted suffering the ‘worst week’ of her life after her former husband admitted to embezzling £400,000 from the SNP.
Peter Murrell, who separated from Scotland’s former first minister last year, has been placed behind bars after admitting his guilt at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday.
The 61-year-old, who was SNP chief executive for 22 years, faces a prison sentence and an unlimited fine after admitting embezzling the party’s funds between 2010 and 2022. He will be sentenced next month.
He used the funds to purchase luxury goods, jewellery, cosmetics, two cars and a motorhome.
Ms Sturgeon, 55, was investigated by Police Scotland about the missing money but the force revealed last year that she would face no further action. She denies any wrongdoing.
Speaking at a literary festival on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘This has probably been the worst week of my life.
‘The last few years have had some tough weeks for me, but this one I think surpasses all of them.
‘Coming to terms with the fact that you spent many years – I spent many years – married to somebody that, as it turns out, I obviously didn’t know at all is a really painful truth to process, and I think I’m only in the very early stages of processing it.
Peter Murrell was accused of embezzling the funds between 2010 and 2022, a period which included Nicola Sturgeon’s tenure as leader and first minister of Scotland
Speaking at a literary festival, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘This has probably been the worst week of my life
Peter Murrell, who was the SNP’s chief executive for 22 years, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday
Murrell has been placed behind bars after admitting his guilt at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday
‘And then to be in a position of such public turmoil myself makes it even harder.
‘This is not a private thing – it would be hard enough if it was a private thing – but it’s very public.’
Ms Sturgeon said she was ‘completely exonerated’ and ‘totally cleared’ after a ‘lengthy’ and ‘very forensic’ police investigation.
However, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘That doesn’t stop, this week, many people pointing the finger of suspicion at me all over again and trying to hold me responsible for somebody else’s crimes and having to go through that in a very, very public way.
‘So it’s, it’s really hard, and I think it will take me some time to properly come to terms with all of that.’
The former first minister acknowledged and said she understood that people would be asking ‘how could she not have known?’.
She added: ‘And I think underlying that question, there is a big misassumption, which is that I knew anything about it, or that I knew all about it.
‘You know, I think everybody assumes that all of this stuff that it turns out now my former husband was buying, I knew about it, and I just didn’t question who paid for it.
‘As recently as Monday, I was reading about things in the newspapers for the first time that I’ve never seen, I didn’t know about it.
‘It wasn’t just that I didn’t question where it came from. I’ve never seen it.’
Her ex-husband used the plundered cash to buy a £125,000 campervan and other luxury goods including Lalique salt and pepper grinders worth £2,600 and Fortnum and Mason advent calendars at £200 a pop.
Murrell was shown to have developed a liking for pricey fountain pens, whisky and vacuums as he compulsively bought items over the years.
He also splashed cash on DVD box sets, games and games consoles during his spending sprees.
It may have started small with the purchase of two Ali Baba laundry baskets, worth £70.89, in September 2010, among the first.
But the purchases became increasingly extravagant with more than £12,000 splashed on Apple brands nine years later.
Murrell purchased games and consoles to the tune of £419.18 in November 2011. In January 2013, Murrell spent £75 on ‘2 x Borgen: The Complete Seasons One and Two DVD’.
He also bought a Volkswagen Golf in 2016 using £16,489 from the party coffers.
In March 2017, he bought a Montblanc white gold £4,225 fountain pen, and on May 28 that year he splashed out £4,555.25 on a white luxury Bremont watch. Just days later, on June 10, he bought the same watch in black, costing £4,795.
Just ahead of Christmas 2018, he spent almost £500 on a Dyson vacuum and the following month, he paid £205.39 for 15-year-old Laphroaig and £149.99 for the same vintage Macallan whisky.
In January 2020 he forked out £2,618.16 on two Feuilles salt and pepper grinders from Lalique UK. The same year he bought a Niesmann and Bischoff motorhome using £124,550 of SNP funds and spent another £54,000 of the party’s cash to buy a Jaguar I-Pace.
Other items include The Origins of Totalitarianism for £159.99 from The Folio Society Ltd purchased in March 2022.
In March 2024, he spent £49.80 on a Le Creuset wine pourer, a Le Creuset champagne and sparkling wine bottle opener and a Le Creuset three in one corkscrew.
That November he bought a £1,299 Miele coffee machine and just before Christmas that year he paid £42.99 on Grand Theft Auto V for the PS4.
Murrell was accused of embezzling funds totalling £400,310.65 between August 2010 and January 2023, a period which included Ms Sturgeon’s nine-year tenure as SNP leader and first minister of Scotland.
