Nicola Sturgeon: I feel as if I’m serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit | Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon said she felt “like I was being punished for a crime I didn’t commit” after her ex-husband and former Scottish National Party chief executive Peter Murrell admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
Murrell this week pleaded guilty to embezzling sums from the SNP between 2010 and 2022 to fund a lavish personal lifestyle.
The 61-year-old spent the money on items including a luxury caravan, a Jaguar SUV and a VW Golf, as well as boutique cosmetics, iPads and a Lalique Feuilles salt and pepper set worth £2,618.
He will be sentenced in June, the month when the SNP faces two parliamentary by-elections in the UK, one in Aberdeen South and the other in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.
The SNP has faced calls for an independent investigation into its finances. Sturgeon was Scotland’s first minister from 2014 to 2023, while Murrell served as the party’s chief executive from 2001 to 2023.
In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg program on Sunday, Sturgeon said she would “not apologize for someone else’s crimes”.
She said: “For my own sake, but for the sake of people out there, I will not contribute to the feeling that I am responsible for someone else’s crimes, for the many women who find themselves responsible for the actions of the men in their lives.
“I will take responsibility for the things I have done, the decisions I have made. I am sitting here with you right now, answering questions because I believe strongly in that responsibility. But I am not responsible for the crimes my ex-husband committed, and I will not apologize for anyone else’s crimes.”
Sturgeon, 55, has consistently denied knowledge of Murrell’s crimes and was not charged following a police investigation. The former prime minister has previously said she was “fully cleared and exonerated” by police and that her ex-husband lied to her.
On Sunday, Sturgeon said her ex-husband had “committed a crime against the SNP”, adding: “By definition that includes me as leader of the party. He misled. He deceived.”
“He is and will be punished for a crime he committed. I feel like I’m here being punished for a crime I didn’t commit.”
Speaking at the Hay festival in Powys on Friday, Sturgeon said: “My picture has been on more front pages in Scotland this week than my ex-husband’s, and I don’t think that’s right.”
She said she had contacted several women in the past week who had been “betrayed” by their husbands and was “determined to move on”, adding: “I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s why I’m not going to hide. That’s why I’m here.”
