Nicola Sturgeon could be allowed to keep gifts bought with money stolen from the SNP by her estranged husband Peter Murrell unless the party takes legal action to recover them, according to a report.
The former first minister is under growing pressure to hand over any items purchased with SNP funds after Murrell admitted embezzling almost £400,000 from the party during his time as chief executive.
According to The Times, legal experts say hundreds of items removed from Murrell’s indictment as part of a plea deal cannot now be seized under proceeds of crime action.
The goods, said to be worth almost £60,000, include household appliances, luxury cookware and items believed to have been bought as gifts for Mrs Sturgeon.
Among the more than 700 purchases struck from the indictment were a robot vacuum cleaner, Smeg kitchen appliances, Le Creuset cookware, Robert Welch cutlery and several expensive floor lamps.
Cosmetics, a Dyson hairdryer, GHD stylers and glassware were also removed from the charge sheet following negotiations between prosecutors and Murrell’s legal team.
Although Murrell has admitted embezzling £400,000 from SNP funds, legal specialists told The Times that many of the items may not be recoverable unless the SNP pursues separate civil action.
Nicola Sturgeon could be allowed to keep gifts bought with money stolen from the SNP by her estranged husband Peter Murrell (pictured) unless the party takes legal action to recover them, according to a report
The goods, said to be worth almost £60,000, include household appliances, luxury cookware and items believed to have been bought as gifts for Mrs Sturgeon (pictured)
Mrs Sturgeon, who has repeatedly denied any knowledge of her husband’s offending and was cleared of wrongdoing following a police investigation, last week said that ‘nothing that belongs to me’ should form part of any process to repay the party.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said: ‘The principle that crime should not pay must apply to Nicola Sturgeon who reaped the rewards of her husband’s industrial-scale thefts over many years.’
Murrell, 60, is due to be sentenced on June 23 after pleading guilty to embezzlement. The SNP has already confirmed it will begin court action in an attempt to recover money stolen from the party.
Aamer Anwar, representing Mrs Sturgeon, said she was ‘an innocent third party’ under Scots law and stressed that none of the items in question had been ordered by her.
He added that she had been cleared of any wrongdoing following a two-year investigation.
It comes after Ms Sturgeon was interviewed by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg last weekend after Murrell admitted stealing more than £400,000 from the party between August 2010 and October 2022.
A court heard how he spent the cash, which had been gathered from SNP donors and members, on luxury items including a motorhome, coffee machines and a robotic lawnmower.
Mr Yousaf said Sturgeon, who has not been charged with any offence and has always claimed she had no knowledge of Murrell’s actions – looked like ‘quite a broken woman’ as she described the ‘trauma’ she has been through.
In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Sturgeon said her ex-husband has never explained to her why he took party funds and said she feels like she is ‘serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit’.
Speaking on BBC Newsnight, Mr Yousaf described his reaction to the police raids at SNP offices in 2023, shortly after he had succeeded Ms Sturgeon as party leader, as ‘utterly gobsmacked’ and ‘livid’.
He added: ‘I think it was day one, maybe day two [of his leadership], I get a call at just before eight in the morning I think it was, to say SNP HQ has been raided by the police and, of course, you can imagine my reaction.
‘By the way, we hear also that Peter and Nicola’s house has also been raided. And, of course, the team cooperates fully and lets the police in, but we’re not allowed in while the police are doing their search.’
Asked whether he believed Ms Sturgeon’s version of events that she was unaware of her then-husband’s actions, Mr Yousaf described her as ‘a person of great integrity’.
He said: ‘Look, I have a bias. I know Nicola, spent a lot of time with Nicola over the years, was appointed to various government roles by Nicola.
‘I believe Nicola because I know the person and I believe her to be a person of great integrity.
‘In that Laura Kuenssberg interview, I thought I saw quite a broken woman. I thought I saw somebody who was really suffering as a result of what’s happened in a huge betrayal.
‘I certainly am in that percentage that believe her, but I can understand people’s scepticism. I mean, I’m not surprised by it.’
Sturgeon said during the interview there is no way she could have known how much items brought home by Murrell cost – and that she did not ask questions about the cars and coffee machines which appeared at her home.
She previously said that both her and her husband earned large salaries and that their bank accounts were entirely separate from one another.
At a court hearing this week after Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling some £400,310.65 from the party, the lengthy list of items the former SNP chief executive had purchased with the stolen cash was revealed.
