Tearful Nicola Sturgeon insisted she is a victim today as she insisted she had no idea her husband was embezzling £400,000 from the SNP.
In a BBC interview as she struggles to save her reputation, the former Scottish First Minister refused to apologise and complained she is ‘serving a sentence for a crime I didn’t commit’.
Ms Sturgeon also argued there was no way she could have known if salt and pepper grinders cost £2,600 – and did not ask questions about an £80,000 luxury car or £3,200 coffee machine.
Peter Murrell – whom she has now divorced – pleaded guilty this week to embezzling huge sums from the SNP between 2010 and 2022.
The 61-year-old spent the money on items including a motorhome, cars, kitchen gadgets, expensive watches and pens, and more mundane purchases such as hand cream and toilet seats.
He is set to be sentenced in June, the same month that the SNP faces two by-election contests – one in Aberdeen South and another in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.
The SNP has faced calls for an independent inquiry into its finances.
Nicola Sturgeon came close to tears as she refused to apologise ‘for the crimes of my former husband’
The former SNP leader was defiant as she said she was not responsible for her ex Peter Murrell’s £400,000 embezzlement
Ms Sturgeon was Scotland’s first minister from 2014 to 2023 while Murrell served as the SNP chief executive from 2001 to 2023.
In an interview on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Sturgeon said she is ‘not going to apologise for somebody else’s crimes’.
She said: ‘For my own sake, but for the sake of people out there, a lot of women who end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives, I’m not going to contribute to that kind of sense that I am responsible for somebody else’s crimes.
‘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.
‘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.’
Ms Sturgeon previously said she had been ‘completely cleared and exonerated’ by police and that she had been lied to by her former husband.
‘(Murrell) perpetrated a crime on the SNP,’ she told the BBC.
‘By definition, that included me as the party leader. He misled. He deceived.
‘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.’
Ms Sturgeon laid out that the couple operated separate bank accounts, saying she sent him money monthly to cover the household outgoings.
‘I was consumed by the responsibilities of my job,’ she said.
She insisted there ‘was nothing that I saw’ to suggest Murrell’s activities were going on.
‘I have seen people laughing about it, you know, a pepper grinder worth £2,000,’ she said.
‘Now, I genuinely don’t know whether that is the pepper grinder that I was using in my house, but I also genuinely am not sure how I was meant to know it cost that amount of money.’
Asked about the purchase of a Jaguar I-Pace, which Murrell subsidised with embezzled funds, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘Peter has had cars in all the time we’ve been together.
‘He would change his car periodically, I didn’t drive, I had no interest in cars.
‘He bought a Jaguar, he wanted to change to an electric car, he told me that, you know, the range on the Jaguar was one that he thought was good and I, again, I know a Jaguar is an expensive car, but we were on high salaries.’
Ms Sturgeon said that angry does not even begin to cover how she feels about Murrell.
She said: ‘Am I angry with him? I don’t even think that begins to cover it.
‘Because not only has he lied to me and betrayed me – and if this was an entirely private thing, that would be bad enough – I mean, I’ve been genuinely touched this week by some of the messages I’ve had by women who’ve been betrayed by their husbands, lied to by their husbands, not in identical circumstances, although some in, you know, not dissimilar circumstances, and speaking to me about the, just the depth of hurt they feel, and I feel all of that.
‘But it’s more than that. He has put me into a position of real peril, he has subjected me to public vilification, having the finger of suspicion pointed at me – you know, humiliation.’
Sturgeon is given a kiss by her then husband Murrell at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in 2014 after she is voted in as First Minister of Scotland
The Daily Mail revealed earlier this week Ms Sturgeon had fled Scotland amid the political storm and is now renting a luxury house in Britain’s capital.
The move comes amid prosecutors’ attempts to claw back some of her estranged fraudster husband Murrell’s stolen funds – which could see the couple’s family home sold off.
Sources close to Ms Sturgeon said she has taken a property in London as she tries to start a new career in the literary world and hopes to avoid ‘the heat’ over Murrell’s crimes.
One source said: ‘Nicola has found a place to stay in London, she’s renting it. It shouldn’t be any surprise as she said before that she wanted to get away and try living somewhere else. Let’s face it – who wouldn’t want to escape with all this going on?’
A second source confirmed Ms Sturgeon’s departure, adding: ‘She’s down there a lot for work things so it just made sense.’
Scottish Tory deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: ‘It’s typical of Nicola Sturgeon to run away from awkward questions. If she is fleeing Scotland to avoid giving an account of her part in this scandal, it will simply reinforce the view that she always puts her own interests above any other considerations.’
In August last year Ms Sturgeon was widely criticised when she hinted she might quit Scotland to live in England. In an interview discussing the release of her memoir, she admitted she might go to London, and said she felt like she ‘can’t breathe freely’ at home.
She said: ‘I think being out of Scotland for a period might just help to reset my perspective and to be more selfish about it, just remove me a little bit from that kind of goldfish bowl scrutiny that I still live under in Scotland.’
Ex-Tory MSP Tess White said the remarks were the ‘definition of hypocrite’ given that ‘Sturgeon still wants Scotland to be separated from the rest of the UK yet she is thinking of moving south for a bit’.
It comes as the Mail also revealed the family home of Ms Sturgeon and Murrell could be sold off to pay for his crimes, with the pair repaying their mortgage during the height of his thievery.
And relatives of the fraudster could be forced to hand back any gifts he gave them during his 12-year crime spree.
Glasgow-based criminal lawyer Ian Moir said prosecutors will now begin the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) process, which will put the onus on Murrell’s lawyers to prove his assets, including his home, are not linked to his crimes.
The couple bought the four-bedroom detached home in Uddingston in 2005, paying £228,000.
Ms Sturgeon declared she had a mortgage in the 2011-2016 ministerial interests record.
However land records, which were updated in 2020, show no mortgage, meaning the couple had repaid it by that time.
The timeline for repayment coincides with the escalation of Murrell’s embezzlement, which began in August 2010, a month after he and Ms Sturgeon married, but ramped up from 2016 when he bought a Volkswagen Golf for £33,000, using £16,489 in trousered SNP cash.
It could mean some of the cash stolen by Murrell was used to pay for the home, along with a plethora of household items to furnish it and a specially fitted library for Ms Sturgeon to relax in. Mr Moir said: ‘The house will likely be put on the list of assets as part of the proceeds of crime.
‘Nicola Sturgeon would then be able to enter the process as what is called a ‘minuter’. Her lawyer would have to write to Scottish ministers declaring that their client is entitled to half of the house.
‘That isn’t contentious as she has not been convicted of any crime.
‘What could also happen is Nicola Sturgeon could say she wants to buy the other half, but that money she pays would go towards the proceeds of crime.’
