Questions remain after Nicola Sturgeon's estranged husband Peter Murrell pleads guilty to embezzling £400k of SNP funds

Want LBC stories before everyone else? Set us as your Preferred Source on Google

While John Swinney rejects suggestions of a parliamentary inquiry into the governance of his party during the 12 years that Murrell stole from the SNP, it is becoming clearer that the now estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon was able to run amok with party money, with no accountability, no checks and balances, and no scrutiny from anyone else.

When it came to using the SNP’s charge card and bank account, he was a rubber stamp in human form. Writing the cheques to himself, then asking for his own approval.

The party leadership would clearly prefer Scotland to move on. But while a criminal conviction answers the question of Peter Murrell’s guilt, it does not answer the wider question of institutional failure.

So here are just a few of the questions which need to be answered so Scots - all Scots, not just those who are members of the SNP and believe in independence - can have trust in the party of government.

Read more: In pictures: Inside the motorhome Peter Murrell bought as he embezzled £400,000 from the SNP

Read more: 'You're f****** crazy': Trump lashes out at Netanyahu over planned Beirut strikes in fiery phone call

1. Where is the ring-fenced independence campaign money?

It was the allegation that this money - around £600,000 - had disappeared from the SNP’s accounts which kicked off the police investigation in the first place. It was while they were looking at that, that Murrell’s embezzling became clear. But his actions took place over a 12 year period, amounting to £400,310.65.

That does not explain where the independence fund went or why there was no separate accounts ledger for it. The cash was raised through donations back in 2017 and yet by 2019 the party only had just shy of £97,000 as cash in hand and at bank, and its reserves had fallen pretty dramatically from £591,000 in 2018 to £271,900. Murrell’s embezzling over 2018 was, ironically, at the lower end of the scale of his spending spree.

So what happened to that money? Previously a former party treasurer described it as being “woven through the accounts” - is that code for “we just spent it on other things”, such as a General Election campaign or the repayment of monies to former donors, Lottery winners Colin and Chris Weir? That is the speculation, but despite the five year police inquiry there’s been no answer to that.

2. Why did Peter Murrell loan the SNP £100,000?

In one of the more bizarre twists in this story, while he was stealing from the SNP, Murrell also loaned it some of his own cash (if it was his own cash, we don’t know).

A total of £107,620 was given by him to assist with "cash flow" issues following the May 2021 Holyrood election campaign, which saw the party end up with a deficit of around £750,000 that year.

It was also the year following his biggest embezzlement, of more than £150,000 in 2020. So did he cause the cash flow problem with his purchase of a luxury motorhome which we now know was only ever driven four miles, between him picking it up and dumping it on his mother’s driveway for two years.

The SNP has actually paid him back almost half of that money - there’s £60k outstanding. But who was involved in the sign off process which saw Murrell lend the money in the first place we still don’t know.

3. Why were the SNP’s financial systems so poor - and why were people ignored?

It has been suggested that Peter Murrell was such a criminal mastermind that he pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone in senior positions in the SNP, especially those who might have given the books the occasional glance. But does that really stack up?

After what we’ve heard in court it seems it was as easy as just renaming what he’d bought as something else when entering the spend in the accounting software - a £23 poached egg set, was put through as an ethernet cable; £9k worth of luxury watches marked down as “event merchandise”, he even passed off the purchase of a £3k robotic lawnmower, including installation, for his home address, as spending on legal fees.

Hard to spot perhaps if you’re not looking for anything out of the ordinary - though you’d think there’d be questions about just what legal advice had been given.

John Swinney has admitted there was not “in every respect adequate controls in place at that moment… the systems in place should not have been able to be abused, but they were.”

But it seems there were no systems in place.

As CEO Peter Murrell had ultimate approval of all expenses claims submitted, including his own. There was an electronic portal to submit claims but he said he could not access it and so submitted his own claims without necessarily providing a receipt or invoice. As a result of such lax controls he was able to steal £18,408 by way of false expenses claims.

He was able to buy a Jaguar iPACE and a motorhome because he made a series of separate transactions all under £30,000 - the limit on what could be spent from the SNP bank account. No-one else was required to sign any of that off.

He could take other staff members' SNP charge cards and use them too - no questions asked. The legal narrative said they had no idea he was using the cards fraudulently.

And people were asking questions - the treasurer and three members of the finance and audit committee resigned because they were getting no answers, and absolutely not getting to see the books. Red flags being waved but no-one else seemed to notice. Former MP Joanna Cherry and former MSP Michelle Thomson both say the culture within the party allowed blind eyes to be turned, and those who asked awkward questions, to be hounded out. The question remains - why?

4. Was any public money embezzled?

This is what lies behind the calls for some kind of inquiry into the scandal, beyond whatever the SNP might choose to do itself. The party received money from the Electoral Commission - as all do - in the form of policy development grants. That money is audited separately and to the satisfaction of the Commission, which has said it has no reason to believe there has been misuse of its funds.

However in court the prosecution said that the source of Murrell’s embezzlement was the party’s principal bank account, over which he had control, and while the money in that account came “principally” from fees, donations and legacies, it was left hanging as to whether there was money there that came from other sources, in particular public monies.

The SNP asks voters to trust it with the future of Scotland. It is therefore reasonable for voters to ask whether senior figures exercised sufficient scrutiny over the party's own affairs.

Political accountability is not the same as criminal liability. But the public is entitled to know what questions were asked internally, what concerns were raised, what information was available to senior office bearers and whether warning signs were missed.

Murrell's conviction has closed one investigation. It did not restore trust. That will only happen when the SNP accepts that the public is entitled to understand not just who committed the wrongdoing, but how an organisation that dominated Scottish politics for nearly two decades failed to stop it.