Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC she feels as if she is “serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit” after her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, admitted embezzling around £400,000 from the SNP. In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg broadcast on Sunday, the former first minister refused to apologise for the scandal and at times became visibly emotional, describing gifts she had received that were later revealed to have been bought with party funds.
Sturgeon, who led the SNP from 2014 to 2023 and shared responsibility for overseeing party accounts, said she had no knowledge of Murrell’s wrongdoing and repeatedly rejected any suggestion she was responsible. “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 told the programme. She said she would accept responsibility for her own actions, but not for crimes she did not commit.
She described being “deceived, betrayed and lied to” and spoke with particular distress about a pendant bought from a Shetland jeweller that Murrell later gave her. Sturgeon said she had worn the necklace frequently and found it painful and bewildering to learn it had been paid for with money taken from the party. She also said she had no clear memory of seeing a luxury motorhome — the largest single embezzled transaction, reported at £124,550 — which had been kept out of immediate view at Murrell’s mother’s house.
Murrell spent party funds on a range of items including cars, jewellery, handbags, coffee machines and games consoles, according to reporting of the investigation. He resigned as SNP chief executive in March 2023 amid controversy over membership figures and was later arrested as part of Operation Branchform. He has admitted the embezzlement and is serving a sentence. Sturgeon was questioned by police in a later phase of the inquiry but was released without charge.
Asked whether she bore responsibility given her leadership role, Sturgeon said Murrell “perpetrated a crime on the SNP” that, by definition, involved her as party leader only because he had misled and deceived. She said she did not accept that party figures had been trying to alert leadership to the kind of behaviour Murrell pled guilty to, and added she had been careful not to interfere with the police investigation into SNP finances.
Sturgeon also rejected suggestions she should contribute personal assets to any legal process seeking to recover money for donors. “I am not guilty of that embezzlement,” she said, arguing that nothing belonging to her should be used to repay what he stole — including the marital home, which she said was not bought with party money. At the same time she acknowledged the emotional and practical toll the affair has taken and said she could not simply “skip away” from its consequences.
Reaction to the interview included calls for further scrutiny. Labour minister Pat McFadden warned against a “culture of control and secrecy” and urged that the matter should not be shut down. Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry said Sturgeon was trying to suggest she was being held guilty for her husband’s crimes while critics were concerned about obstruction of scrutiny over party finances. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said there should be an inquiry, arguing trust in politics has been undermined.
First Minister John Swinney has resisted calls for a Holyrood inquiry, saying the police investigation — a forensic probe that led to a prosecution and a guilty plea — provides the highest standard of scrutiny. Others say parliamentary or wider inquiries may still be warranted to examine how the party’s finances were overseen.
Sturgeon made clear she expects Murrell to “pay a price” for his actions while insisting that she should not bear blame for crimes she says she did not commit. She described the experience of being blamed by others as among the most painful aspects, particularly when the person responsible was someone she had loved and trusted.
