Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party and estranged husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, has been jailed for five years and three months after embezzling more than £400,000 of party funds over more than a decade.
The 61-year-old pleaded guilty last month to the offence at the High Court in Edinburgh, where he was sentenced today. Murrell stole the funds between August 2010 and October 2022, using the money to purchase a range of personal items including a motorhome, a luxury fountain pen and video games.
The case represents one of the most significant scandals in Scottish political history, bringing to a close a long-running investigation that also involved the arrest and questioning of Nicola Sturgeon herself, though she was not charged. Murrell’s conviction strips the SNP of any remaining credibility over a period in which the party dominated Scottish politics, holding power at Holyrood and winning repeated Westminster elections on a pro-independence platform, while its most senior official was secretly raiding party finances.
Murrell had been one of the most powerful figures in Scottish politics behind the scenes, running the SNP’s day-to-day operations as chief executive for more than two decades alongside Sturgeon’s tenure as party leader and First Minister. The couple have since separated.
