A £425 necklace depicting the Northern Lights, bought from a Shetland jeweller in 2019, was among the gifts former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon received from her estranged husband Peter Murrell – gifts she has since discovered were purchased with money he embezzled from the Scottish National Party.
The revelation came after Murrell, the SNP’s former chief executive, pleaded guilty at the High Court on 25 May 2026 to embezzling £400,310.65 from the party between August 2010 and October 2022. He was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing on 23 June. Sturgeon, who has repeatedly denied any knowledge of her husband’s crimes, told an interviewer that learning the true source of the jewellery and other presents had caused her “pain” and “bewilderment”.
Police Scotland’s Operation Branchform, launched in July 2021, originally investigated allegations that £666,953 raised for a second Scottish independence referendum campaign had been improperly spent. The inquiry led to Murrell’s embezzlement case. Investigators found that the bulk of the thefts occurred between 2019 and 2022, though the embezzlement stretched back to 2010. Murrell, who controlled the party’s principal bank account, used false invoices, party credit cards in staff names, and falsified accounts to disguise his spending as legitimate party expenses.
How the embezzled funds were used
The money financed what prosecutors described as a “lavish personal lifestyle”. Among the largest purchases was a luxury Niesmann + Bischoff motorhome bought for £124,550 in 2020. In 2019 Murrell spent £57,500 on a Jaguar I-Pace, and in early 2016 he used £16,489 of SNP money towards a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf.
Luxury goods included two Bremont watches totalling £9,350, a £4,225 Starwalker World Time fountain pen, and a £3,500 Hamilton & Inches silver wine coaster. Murrell also bought a £150 Folio Society edition of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, boutique cosmetics, iPads, and a Lalique Feuilles salt and pepper set worth £2,618. Household items for the home he shared with Sturgeon included a £1,300 Miele coffee machine and gardening equipment. Further purchases encompassed a telescope, a Sony PlayStation, Fortnum & Mason hampers, several Montblanc fountain pens, chopsticks, high-end coffee machines, make-up, and underwear.
The 9ct gold necklace from Shetland Jewellery – described as showing the Northern Lights – cost £425 (some reports put the figure at £450). At the time of purchase, Murrell reportedly boasted to the jeweller, “I’m the man with the money.” Sturgeon was often pictured wearing the necklace in public.
Gifts to Nicola Sturgeon
Aside from the necklace, Sturgeon received other items bought with embezzled cash, including a designer handbag worth £750 and Montblanc pens costing £500. Sturgeon has stated that she and Murrell had separate bank accounts and she had no access to his financial records. She claimed she was unaware of many items in their home, such as expensive watches and games consoles. Her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, has said that under Scots law Sturgeon is an “innocent third party” and would never have had legal ownership of embezzled property.
Current First Minister John Swinney has said it is for the courts to decide whether Sturgeon should be compelled to return gifts purchased with embezzled money. The Crown has made representations to the court regarding a confiscation order that will address these issues. Legal experts have indicated that the Proceeds of Crime Act could be used to recover jointly owned assets – including the marital home, in which Sturgeon holds a stake – to compensate the SNP. Gifts received, even if the recipient was unaware of their origin, are considered “tainted” and may be subject to seizure.
Sturgeon has signalled she would resist giving up anything she regards as hers. In a tearful interview she said: “I loved that necklace and I wore it a lot… The idea that I would have gone about wearing things that I had known were anything other than what they were presented as, a gift from my husband… to then find out that these were gifts given to me that he’d bought with the party’s money causes a level of, I don’t know, pain, bewilderment.” She added that some of her birthday and Christmas presents had turned out to be a “lie”.
Murrell’s assets include pension pots worth £613,000 and his stake in the marital home. He is reportedly planning to use his pension funds to pay any confiscation order. Police Scotland concluded their investigations into Sturgeon and SNP treasurer Colin Beattie in March 2025, with no charges filed against either.
John Swinney has acknowledged a “fundamental flaw” in having both Sturgeon and Murrell in top party positions, though he did not raise concerns at the time. Sturgeon herself has called it a “misjudgment” to keep Murrell in his post. Opposition parties are calling for a Holyrood inquiry into the SNP’s finances, a move the party does not support. The SNP also faces questions about potential VAT owed to HM Revenue and Customs if Murrell claimed back VAT on purchases disguised as party expenses; the party is in talks with HMRC. The original ring-fenced referendum fund that triggered the police investigation remains largely unaccounted for, with the SNP admitting it was spent on routine party activities. Separately, it has been reported that Murrell and his family sold their jointly-owned villa in Portugal after he claimed legal aid; Swinney said he had no knowledge of the sale but that legal aid claims are assessed on strict criteria.
