They were Scotland’s ultimate power couple and his spending binges would make Imelda Marcos blush. How could Nicola Sturgeon not know?

Far from marking the end of the SNP’s financial scandal, Peter Murrell’s guilty plea will only increase the pressure on Nicola Sturgeon.

Murrell, the former chief executive of Scotland’s ruling party, appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday where he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 over a decade.

His estranged wife, Sturgeon, was a frontrunner for the Nationalists from 2014 to 2023. He took the party to electoral heights once thought impossible and shattered the powerful Labor Party that had dominated Scottish politics for decades.

At his side was Murrell, the Nats’ backroom boss who oversaw a membership boom that helped fund a sharper, shrewder political operation. They were Scotland’s most powerful couple, the darlings of the left-leaning establishment and the toast of chattering class dinner parties, and for a time it looked as if they would rule forever.

Later in 2021, Police Scotland launched an investigation, codenamed Operation Branchform, into the fate of approximately £667,000 in donations to the party coffers from supporters of Scottish independence. Murrell was charged with embezzlement in April 2024, and nine months later Sturgeon announced their separation.

Following Murrell’s admission yesterday, Sturgeon said on Instagram that she was ‘completely appalled’ by his actions and reiterated that she had ‘no knowledge or suspicion’ that he had raided party funds.

Political opponents moved quickly to debunk his denials.

Murrell, who oversaw the membership boom as the Nats’ backroom boss, with Sturgeon on their wedding day in 2010

Murrell used the money to buy various items, including a caravan and luxury goods, and to buy two cars

Labour’s deputy leader in Scotland, Jackie Baillie, said: ‘It is inconceivable that Nicola Sturgeon knew nothing about the massive fraud that was taking place before her eyes, both in her party and at home, from which she benefited.’

In a scathing statement following yesterday’s court hearing, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said Murrell’s ‘crime spree’ was taking place ‘right under her nose’, adding: ‘You would have to be a particularly gullible member of Nicola Sturgeon’s fan club to swallow her implausible objections to her ignorance of her husband’s criminal gang.’

As she has repeatedly repeated, the support material given to Sturgeon was arrested and questioned by Branchform detectives in June 2023 and released without charge the same day.

But questions still remain.

Critics want to know how Sturgeon missed out on high-end purchases such as the £3,192 Frank Smythson tea set and dressing table, two Bremont World Timer Alt 1 watches (combined priced at more than £9,000) and the £2,600 Lalique salt and pepper grinder set.

Then came a range of luxury coffee machines: the £1,300 Miele 6300 coffee machine in 2014, the £1,900 Jura bean-to-cup coffee machine in 2017 and an upgraded Jura model the following year costing £2,600. In the late 2010s, the Sturgeon-Murrell family could make Starbucks money.

Not to mention the famous Niesmann and Bischoff caravan worth £125,000.

Murrell treated the party’s assets as his personal slush fund, money largely transferred by ordinary supporters who believed they were contributing to the fund to fight for independence.

Murrell treated the party’s assets, money largely transferred by ordinary supporters who believed they were contributing to the independence struggle fund, as his personal slush fund.

Murrell, who was chief executive of the nationalists for 22 years, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh. Seen here on May 25

Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay says ‘crime spree’ is happening right under Sturgeon’s nose

Sturgeon is adamant these were ‘not my fault’ and that she was ‘misled like everyone else’.

It strikes her critics as odd that for a woman who rose to the top of Scottish politics by being fiercely disciplined, always in control and keeping a close eye on every detail, she did not suspect anything improper even when her husband was spending so lavishly that Imelda Marcos would blush.

Today, Sturgeon has left the political scene altogether and is pursuing a media career that includes publishing her memoirs, acting as an election pundit for ITV and appearing in a series of in-chat stage shows alongside crime novelist Val McDermid, in which she chats books and politics.

However, his departure from the front did not diminish the opposition parties’ determination to get to the truth.

Now the screws are turning to current SNP leader and Sturgeon’s long-time ally John Swinney, with calls for his supporters to be compensated for donations misappropriated by the former chief executive.

That’s unlikely to happen given how tight the organization’s finances are these days. Even staunch supporters have become reluctant to cash out the sums seen at the height of the Sturgeon-Murrell reign. Considering how much of their money went to Murrell enriching himself, it’s not hard to see why.

There are also demands to review the extraordinary decision to postpone Murrell’s trial date until after the Scottish Parliament elections. He was originally scheduled to appear before a judge in February, right in the middle of the devolved election campaign.

The eleventh-hour decision by the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, to postpone the trial until after election day on May 7 has sparked outrage from SNP rivals. Freed from having to fight for votes against the backdrop of an embezzlement case, the Nationalists secured an unprecedented fifth consecutive term of government at Holyrood.

For all the constitutional changes it has brought about, devolution has done little to change politics north of the border. The rot now comes with a saltire stuck on it. Everything smells, the logic seems, but at least it smells Scottish.