Nicola Sturgeon says she was deceived by ex‑husband after £400k SNP embezzlement

Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon said the week following her estranged husband Peter Murrell’s guilty plea for embezzling more than £400,000 from SNP funds was “probably the worst” of her life. Murrell admitted stealing the money between 2010 and 2022 to purchase luxury items such as a motorhome, cars, expensive watches, a telescope and other goods.

Sturgeon told audiences at the Hay Festival in Wales and the Listowel Writers’ Week literary festival in Ireland that she felt “deceived, misled and betrayed”, but maintained she had no knowledge of the crimes and was fully exonerated after a two‑year police investigation. She denied having shut down concerns about party finances, saying the accounts were audited by professional auditors and that any suggestion otherwise was “rubbish”.

Sturgeon said she would continue to speak about the scandal, emphasising that she was not “hiding away” and that she had taken responsibility for keeping Murrell in his role, though she asserted she could not be held responsible for his criminal actions.