Who is Peter Murrell? The disgraced SNP chief executive and Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband who embezzled £400k

Peter Murrell, once one half of Scotland’s most influential power couple and husband to Nicola Sturgeon, has suffered a dramatic decline.

As the SNP’s long-serving chief executive, he oversaw the party’s meteoric rise and influx of members around the 2014 independence referendum.

Ms Sturgeon’s fortunes changed following her surprise resignation as First Minister in February 2023. The row over party membership numbers led to Murrell resigning from the position of executive chairman, a position he held for more than 20 years.

In April, police carried out a dramatic raid on the couple’s home near Glasgow as part of Operation Branchform, an investigation into SNP finances. He was later arrested and charged with embezzlement.

Murrell had been head of the party since 1999 and was responsible for its day-to-day running until he resigned in 2023.

Although never an elected politician, the party official previously worked in former SNP leader Alex Salmond’s constituency office.

He met Ms Sturgeon during his work for the SNP in the late 1980s and it was first announced that he was in a relationship in early 2003.

They married in Glasgow in 2010; Ms Sturgeon was the party’s deputy leader and served as the Scottish Government’s health secretary.

Six years his junior, Ms Sturgeon rose through the ranks after being first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

The SNP came to power as a minority government in 2007, which was mostly attributed to Murrell’s organizational skills, and made huge electoral gains in the 2011 election.

Following the resignation of the late Mr Salmond in 2014 following the outcome of the independence referendum, Ms Sturgeon was elected unopposed as his successor.

Questions were raised at the time about the close business and personal relationship between husband and wife, but they insisted there was a strict separation of power within the party leadership.

Speaking in a documentary broadcast last year, Mr Salmond said he had privately expressed concerns to the couple that the press would exploit their relationship if things went badly for the SNP.

When Ms Sturgeon resigned in February 2023, it was initially assumed Murrell would continue as party chief executive.

However, he resigned the following month after inaccurate membership figures were reported to the media; It was later revealed that 30,000 SNP members had left within a year.

In the final years of Ms Sturgeon’s leadership, some in the SNP complained about a lack of transparency about the party’s finances.

In June 2021 the then first minister said he was “not worried” about the finances despite two high-profile resignations.

Allegations have been made that hundreds of thousands of pounds collected for Scotland’s independence campaign were diverted to other places.

Then in July 2021, Police Scotland said they had launched an investigation following seven complaints about SNP donations.

That investigation led to scenes where a blue tent was erected outside Murrell’s home in April 2023 as police carried out simultaneous searches of the property and the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh.

In January 2025, Ms Sturgeon announced that she and Murrell had “sadly” ended their marriage.

He said they “still care deeply about each other and always will.”

Murrell has not commented publicly on the matter.

Ms Sturgeon resigned as Glasgow Southside MSP ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May this year.

Murrell was remanded in custody at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, May 25, after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from the Scottish National Party between August 2010 and October 2022.