Peter Murrell was one half of the most powerful political couple Scotland has seen - now he's behind bars
Peter Murrell was one half of the most powerful political couple Scotland has ever seen.
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The power behind the throne on which sat his now estranged wife Nicola Sturgeon, he was, as chief executive of the SNP, regarded as the practical brains behind the party’s electoral juggernaut.
While Nicola Sturgeon was the politics and the face - taking to podiums and taking selfies as Scotland’s First Minister and SNP leader - he was running the operation, and as we know now, pocketing hundreds of thousands of the party’s money to spend lavishly on luxury items.
In Edinburgh’s High Court he looked as diffident as ever - the epitome of a quiet, bespectacled man, who shied away from the limelight in which his partner appeared to bask. In a navy suit, white shirt and navy tie he arrived in the sunlight. carrying a holdall.
A guilty plea a few hours later and he left the court in handcuffs. A snatched photo of him in a prison van showed he was also now tieless.
It is a cliche to talk of how far the mighty fall, but in the case of Murrell, it couldn’t be more apt. As SNP chief executive he was top of the political heap, his marriage to Nicola Sturgeon cementing that position, even if there were those questioning the wisdom of such an arrangement when she replaced Alex Salmond as leader.
But then it seems questions were not welcome about that, or indeed about the party’s finances.
Time and again party members, particularly those on the SNP’s National Executive Committee raised issues and were told there was nothing to see, or indeed to just shut up and go away - that’s if they got an answer at all.
It took a member of the public, independence campaigner Sean Clerkin, to go to Police Scotland with an allegation that a £600,000 independence pot had gone missing for the questions to get louder and much more serious.
Operation Branchform was launched in 2021. By February 2023 Nicola Sturgeon resigned, shocking the political world, but denying then, as she does now, that she knew what was coming down the line.
Within weeks there was a blue forensic crime tent outside their home, and detectives went through the place with a fine-toothed comb. The SNP HQ in Edinburgh was similarly searched - minus the tent.
Arrests followed - of Murrell, of Sturgeon and of the party’s treasurer Colin Beattie. But it was Peter Murrell alone who faced any charges. Initially the amount was close to £460,000, today that had reduced slightly to £400,310.
And where had the money gone? 125 pages of court schedules spell it out - £125k on a motorhome (impounded from his mother’s driveway where it had been parked), £57,500 on a Jaguar I-PACE car- sold for £47,378.76 two years later, the money remaining with him.
There were expensive coffee machines and gourmet beans, shirts from Gant, Timberland boots, Helly Hansen and Berghaus parkas; £4,225 on a Starwalker World Time fountain pen, a £3,500 at Edinburgh luxury jewellers Hamilton and Inches and goods from Smythsons.
And hiding it all with a trail of dodgy invoices and false receipts.
Current SNP leader John Swinney has said he feels betrayed by Murrell’s actions. Nicola Sturgeon says she is angry, upset, sad and very distressed. Both say they do not understand why he acted in the way he did.
With a guilty plea we will perhaps never know the reasons for his actions, though next week his lawyers and the prosecution will be back in court to agree the “terms of narrative” which could explain some of it. And then we get the sentencing on June 23.
But there are still questions to answer too around where the goods he bought now reside and if they will be sold off as proceeds of crime and the money returned to the SNP. Will those who donated to the party in good faith receive their money back? Today John Swinney says not.
And as to those still involved in the SNP who turned a deaf ear to those who were raising concerns, what happens to them? It feels like this will have some way to run inside the party which Peter Murrell once reigned over.
Tonight though he is behind bars and a life of luxury could not be further from reach.
Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland Political Editor.
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