Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband Peter Murrell is jailed for more than five years for embezzling £400,000 from SNP funds to spend on cars, jewellery, and a motorhome
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell has been jailed for five years and three months after admitting embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
Last month, the 61-year-old former SNP chief executive admitted siphoning huge sums of money from the SNP over a 12-year period.
Murrell, the estranged husband of former prime minister Nicola Sturgeon, falsified accounting records and created fake invoices to cover up his mistake.
Sentencing him at the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Lord Young told Murrell he had committed “an offense of calculated dishonesty” by “numerous acts of fraud over a 12-month period during your time as chief executive of the SNP”.
Murrell used the money to make hundreds of extravagant purchases, including a £124,550 caravan, cars, jewellery, luxury homewares and designer stationery.
He also falsified accounting records and prepared false invoices to cover up his mistake.
Peter Murrell arrives at Edinburgh High Court in a prison van for sentencing. He was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, but would have been sentenced to seven years had he not pleaded guilty
Murrell was handcuffed and taken to jail this morning
Nicola Sturgeon says she was ‘betrayed’ by estranged Peter Murrell
Lord Young said the frequency and quantity of crimes had increased over time.
He added: ‘You realized you could not stop this attack and it was only the detection of the crime that put an end to it.’
Murrell’s lawyer, John Scullion KC, said his client had been living in ‘isolation’ since his guilty plea.
He told the High Court: ‘He has lived in almost complete isolation for months.’
He said his client had admitted the crime and had been ‘shunned’ by his former colleagues.
Mr Scullion said he had become ‘an object of public ridicule’ as a result of his acquisitions.
He also said Murrell was aware of the harm his actions had caused.
“In my view the defendant is now an individual caught up in feelings of embarrassment and embarrassment,” Mr Scullion told judge Lord Young.
A nine-page statement into Murrell’s extensive crimes was read by prosecutor Alan Cameron KC.
The court heard a 24ft caravan costing more than £124,000, which Murrell paid for using stolen money, was traveling just four miles per hour when it was seized by police.
And around £43,000 was spent on goods from Amazon; Almost all of them were delivered to the home he shares with his wife Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former First Minister, on the outskirts of Glasgow.
Among the items listed as ‘leadership expenses’ was a £3,500 silver wine coaster. The prosecutor also discussed the purchase of the trailer by Murrell. Mr Cameron said when the invoice was issued it was described as a ‘van’. He added: ‘It was never used or seen by any other party member or employee.’
The court has previously heard that Murrell’s position allowed him to make cash transfers directly from the party’s main bank account, which held funds ‘from membership fees and donations paid by party members and other donors and legacies’.
Murrell also alleged the use of ‘payment cards’ by multiple parties, as well as a number of false charges.
He attempted to evade suspicion by providing ‘misleading statements and/or accounting codes’ for his purchases into the party’s financial system, to which he had direct access.
Murrell’s offending came to light after police began receiving complaints about possible mismanagement of the SNP’s finances in March 2021.
This led to an investigation in which police uncovered evidence of Murrell’s embezzlement.
Murrell’s guilty plea sparked intense scrutiny from his ex-wife Nicola Sturgeon, who denied knowing of his crimes and said she was “deceived, misled and betrayed”.
The former SNP leader said he was ‘fully exonerated’ following a ‘two-year, highly forensic police investigation’ in which officers searched the home he and Murrell shared.
Ms Sturgeon was arrested and questioned as part of a police investigation into the SNP’s finances, known as Operation Branchform, but Police Scotland confirmed she would not face any action.
The case also led to widespread calls for an investigation into Murrell’s misconduct.
Former first minister Lord Jack McConnell said a joint inquiry by both Holyrood and Westminster committees should examine the matter.
Shadow Scottish secretary Andrew Bowie also called on Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee to launch an investigation.
The Scottish Government has resisted calls for a parliamentary inquiry and Labor’s motion calling for an inquiry was rejected by a majority of MSPs earlier this month.
John Swinney has previously said the investigation was unnecessary given the detailed nature of the police investigation.
The Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster considered launching its own inquiry into the matter.
In addition, the committee has written to officials in the House of Commons to determine how much short money (public money given to opposition parties to help them carry out their duties) was given to the SNP during the period of Murrell’s crimes.
The committee also asked about ‘measures available to reduce the risk of misuse of short money’.
