Motorhome bought by Murrell with stolen SNP money was driven only 4 miles, court told | Scotland

The luxury caravan Peter Murrell bought using money he stole from the Scottish National Party was driven just four miles and sat unused for more than two years.

Murrell, then chief executive of the SNP, drove the £124,550 Niesmann+Bischoff vehicle from Halbeath dealerships in Fife to his mother’s home in Dunfermline in January 2021; this meant a cost per mile of £31,138.

The high court in Edinburgh heard on Tuesday that Murrell lied in records of the party by describing it as a van on a fake invoice and stocked it with luxury goods worth hundreds of pounds.

Police found kitchenware from Le Creuset and Joseph Joseph, an Alessi teapot and toiletries from Molton Brown. Murrell also embezzled SNP funds, mainly from party donations, membership fees and bequests, to purchase motoring guides for “inspiring journeys” around Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.

In a brief statement detailing how Murrell lied and falsified paperwork to steal a total of £400,310.65 from the SNP, Alan Campbell KC, for the prosecution, said the vehicle remained there until it was seized by police in April 2023.

Murrell, the estranged husband of former prime minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, sat impassively in the dock wearing a navy blue suit and black tie as Campbell spoke and was then taken in handcuffs to the remand wing of Edinburgh prison.

Murrell pleaded guilty last week to embezzling the money over 12 years. For many, the caravan became a symbol of Murrell’s greed but raised new questions about how much Sturgeon knew.

In a highly charged 55-minute interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Sturgeon denied spotting the vehicle while visiting her mother-in-law’s home with Murrell.

He said it was parked next to the house, next to a neighboring property, and implied that neither Murrell nor his mother or father had ever mentioned it.

Sturgeon said the caravan “was between the house and the next door neighbor’s house. I don’t really have a conscious memory of seeing that caravan. If I had seen it I would probably have assumed it was the neighbour’s.”

“My mother-in-law and father-in-law were in their mid-80s. I never thought it belonged to them… and why did it occur to me that it was from the SNP that Peter bought it?”

Murrell also hid this from party workers, Campbell told judge Lord Young. “It was never used or seen by any other party member or employee,” he said.

He claimed the caravan was purchased because it could be used as a mobile campaign headquarters during the Covid crisis. When police searched him no SNP campaign materials were found.

As party chief executive, Murrell had complete control over the party’s books and accounts and used that access to conceal his purchases during a 12-year spending spree, Campbell said.

He created fake invoices, used the wrong codes for some items on the party’s books, transferred money directly from the party’s accounts and used his own and two SNP workers’ cards to buy things without their knowledge.

Most mail-order items, including those from Amazon, were delivered directly to SNP headquarters, with a few posted to family members.

These fraudulent transactions included:

• The £3,500 silver wine coaster from Hamilton & Inches was described as spending on “leadership expenses”.

• Egg poacher worth £23 listed on SNP records as ‘computer equipment purchases – internet cabling’

• A fake invoice stated that the £81,000 Jaguar I-Pace SUV was “staged payment”.

• The £3,070 cost of the robotic Husqvarna lawnmower found by police at the home he later shared with Sturgeon was listed as “legal fees”.

Analysis of Murrell’s expenses showed that after making very small purchases between 2010 and 2015, his embezzlement reached nearly £50,000 a year in 2016 and 2017. It then rose to around £100,000 in 2019 before reaching £150,000 in 2020, largely due to the caravan.

Murrell is expected to be sentenced on June 23.