SNP donor 'heartbroken' at Peter Murrell's 'huge betrayal' as former SNP CEO prepares to be sentenced

Angela Donnachie said the financial scandal which has engulfed the SNP had left her "angry" but her daughter Claire Valentine said her mother had been "heartbroken".

Speaking ahead of Peter Murrell's sentencing on Tuesday for embezzling more than £400,000 of party funds, Mrs Donnachie said: "I'm angry and frustrated that one man could do this,

"It is a huge betrayal of everybody that has worked so hard. I've had friends that have been working for 50 years for the SNP. So I just feel it was a huge betrayal, and I'm angry with him."

The 77-year-old SNP supporter from Dunfermline donated £1500 to the "ring-fenced" independence referendum fund campaign which was launched by Nicola Sturgeon in March 2017, in response to the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

The ScotRef fundraiser raised almost £500,000 of a £1m target before it was closed in June 2017. A second drive was then launched after the 2019 general election victory by Boris Johnson which took the fund to almost £667,000.

The party had consistently insisted the money was "ring-fenced" for a referendum campaign, however in 2020 there were claims the cash had gone missing after the 2019 accounts showed a balance of just £97,000 in the bank and net assets of £272,000.

Three members of the SNP's finance committee and then the treasurer, former MP Douglas Chapman, resigned after being refused access to the accounts. Later a leaked video from a meeting of the SNP's National Executive Committee in March 2021 showed Nicola Sturgeon telling members that the party "had never been in a stronger financial position".

But just months later Police Scotland acted on reports of the missing money and launched Operation Branchform, which has resulted in Peter Murrell's guilty plea to embezzlement.

The last month has also seen current SNP leader John Swinney tell members that the "ring-fenced" money had been spent as part of the SNP's general expenditure.

Angela's daughter Claire Valentine told LBC that the fall-out from the scandal had left her mother devastated.

"She was heartbroken. A proper physical feeling of, 'I can't believe what's going on.

"We have supported the SNP for generations and were heavily involved in the independence campaign.

"My great uncle even used to do pirate radio broadcasts for the SNP in the 1950s and 1960s,. We're not new to this."

She said the impact on her mother went far beyond the financial contribution itself. "When all this started coming out, I actually got a wee bit worried for my mum because she dipped incredibly."

She said the family had been "gutted" by the loss of the 2014 referendum and the new fundraising drive offered hope that there would be a second vote, so the embezzlement and the money not being ring-fenced, "was just like the final betrayal."

Claire said her mother made the donation from money she received after selling her house. "It was one of the first times in her life that she could do something like donate that much. It's not millions but it's a lot of roast chickens.

"We trusted the party completely. Both my mum and my partner were members. We'd met so many politicians through the referendum. We'd met Nicola quite a few times, met John Swinney, knew local politicians.

"These were people that we knew and we felt we could trust."

On the fact that donations were not ring-fenced for a second referendum campaign, Claire added: "Don't say it's for a specific project if it's not.

"If you don't have enough money to do what you want to do, you just don't do it. Or you find another way of doing it, or you approach the people who gave you the money in the first place and explain the situation you're in and ask 'is this okay?'

"Give people a chance to go, aye, that's absolutely fine, or actually, no, can I have my money back until we get closer to a referendum and I know what it's going to be used for.

"I'm sure there would have been people who were donating, who weren't SNP members. And for that money to then be used to fund whatever the party wanted to fund it for, I think is pretty distasteful.

"It reminds me of giving your kids money to put aside for their driving lessons and then it turns out they used it for deodorant and clothes.

"I think people deserve a better explanation than that. I think people deserve an apology and I think people deserve an opportunity to get a refund.

"But while you can refund the money you cannae buy back people's trust."

But Angela Donnachie said she didn't want her donations returned.

"I gave that money in good faith, and I think it would have been used in good faith apart from one man," she said.

"He did it at a horrendous time for the whole country, a horrendous time for the SNP government, at a time he knew he would get away with it. So the blame starts and stops with him."

She also defended former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon when asked whether senior figures within the party should have known more about what was happening. "I believe her," she said.

However, she said there should be a review of the systems that govern political party finances.

"I think there needs to be a real look at processes within the Parliament," she said. "It should be a cross-party look at how that could happen to any party and what we can put in place to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

"This will not be the only case. It's the one we're hearing about, but I don't believe for a minute it's not happened before in other parties too."

She added: "But it's nothing to do with Westminster, it's really nothing to do with anybody else but the SNP, it was their money that he stole. Well, part of it was my money. It certainly wasn't anything to do with Westminster."

Claire added: “I would rather it was some totally independent thing… one person going to prison is not accountability, it wasn't a solo act, it was policy that let it happen, and lack of oversight.”

SNP leader John Swinney has apologised to those affected by Peter Murrell's embezzlement, which he says includes himself. And he has said that all money donated was spent on the SNP’s “independence objectives".