Nicola Sturgeon has said she feels as though she is “serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit”, as she revealed her estranged husband Peter Murrell has never explained to her why he embezzled more than £400,000 from the SNP.
The former Scottish first minister spoke of the “trauma” of sitting in a police station under arrest and the “pain” of discovering that gifts Murrell gave her, including a necklace she was often pictured wearing, had been bought with stolen party funds.
‘He lied to me and betrayed me’
Murrell, 61, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh on 25 May to embezzling the sum from the SNP between 2010 and 2022. He is due to be sentenced on 23 June. In an interview on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Sturgeon said Murrell told her a few days before the hearing that he intended to plead guilty, but has not offered any explanation since.
“I haven’t seen him from the point he told me he was going to plead guilty until he pled guilty on Monday, because I wasn’t able to – just emotionally wasn’t able to deal with that,” she said. “So he’s never sat down and given me his account. Now, presumably I will hear his account from the court at some point, but he’s never given me an explanation.” Asked by Laura Kuenssberg whether she had asked for one, Sturgeon replied: “Yeah, but he’s never given it to me.”
She said “angry does not even begin to cover” how she feels. “He lied to me and betrayed me,” she said, adding that he “put me into a position of real peril”. She described the investigation as a “profound personal trauma” and said recovery will take a “very, very long time”.
The scale of the embezzlement
Murrell admitted embezzling £400,310.65 during his tenure as SNP chief executive from 2001 to 2023. The court heard that he spent the money on a luxury Niesmann + Bischoff motorhome costing £124,550, a Volkswagen Golf partly funded with £16,489 of party cash, and a Jaguar I-Pace SUV on which he spent £57,500 of SNP money towards a total cost of £81,277. Other items included a Bremont watch (£9,350), a Beatles Special Edition Fountain Pen (£1,475), a Jura Giga 5 Cromo coffee machine (£3,232), and a robotic lawnmower (£3,070).
The indictment detailed hundreds of purchases, among them a silver wine coaster (£3,500), a jewellery box (£2,495), Le Creuset kitchenware, designer bread bins, toilet seats, hand cream, and even a book of speeches by Nicola Sturgeon (£22.04). The embezzlement escalated from 2016 onwards, with the majority occurring between 2019 and 2022. Murrell disguised payments as legitimate expenses, submitted false invoices, and used party credit cards – sometimes in the names of other SNP staff. The judge, Lord Young, described his actions as a “gross breach of trust”.
Police Scotland’s investigation, Operation Branchform, was launched in July 2021 after allegations that £666,953 raised for a second independence referendum had been improperly spent. The operation lasted nearly four years, cost almost £2.7 million, and covered the tenures of three first ministers. As of 2026, £667,000 remains unaccounted for.
Separate finances and no knowledge of purchases
Sturgeon stressed that she had no involvement in the household finances and no knowledge of Murrell’s crimes. She explained that she and Murrell maintained separate bank accounts, and that she never had access to his account, nor he to hers. “Every month I would pass him a sum of money to cover my share of the household expenses and leave him to it,” she said.
As first minister from 2014 to 2023, Sturgeon said she was working “round the clock” most days and had little to do with the administration of the home. “I absolutely didn’t know that he was committing crimes,” she said. “Just to explain how our finances worked, we had separate bank accounts.” She added that the couple were both on high salaries and she had no reason to suspect anything, as she thought their incomes would have supported the items she saw in the house.
She described her “pain” and “bewilderment” upon learning that a £425 necklace Murrell bought from a shop in Shetland and gave to her – which she was often pictured wearing – had been purchased with embezzled money. She also said she had no “conscious memory of seeing that motorhome” until it featured in the police investigation.
Sturgeon was arrested by Police Scotland on 11 June 2023 and released without charge. Colin Beattie, the SNP’s former treasurer, was also arrested. In March 2025, police concluded their investigations into both Sturgeon and Beattie, with no charges filed. Sturgeon said she has been “completely cleared and exonerated” and described the police probe as “exhaustive and detailed and forensic”.
‘I’m not going to apologise for somebody else’s crimes’
In the BBC interview, Sturgeon rejected calls for her to apologise. “I will take responsibility for the things I do, the decisions I make. I’m sitting here with you right now, answering questions because I believe strongly in that accountability,” she said. “But I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed and I’m not going to apologise for somebody else’s crimes.”
She said Murrell “perpetrated a crime on the SNP” and that “by definition, that included me as the party leader. He misled. He deceived.” She added: “He is serving and will be serving a sentence for a crime he committed. I’m out here feeling as if I’m serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit.”
