Image source, PA MediaFormer First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaking at the West Belfast Festival earlier this week
ByMegan BonarBBC Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon said she has not spoken to her estranged husband since he was jailed for embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP while serving as its chief executive.
The former first minister also told a podcast she would not visit Peter Murrell, 61, in prison and she felt like a “mug” for continuing to care about him.
Sturgeon has denied any knowledge of his crimes, which included using party funds to purchase a motorhome and dozens of luxury goods.
And, speaking to broadcaster Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the ex-SNP leader said she was still learning what Murrell had done on the day he pled guilty.
Asked at the fringe event if she would visit him in prison, Sturgeon replied: “No. I’m not going to speak to him, I’m not going to visit him.”
The former MSP added that she was still discovering details of the purchases Murrell had made using SNP money when he tendered a guilty plea at the High Court in Edinburgh on 25 May.
“Over the years, he never really levelled with me,” she said.
“The day he pled guilty, I was still learning about some of the detail of what he had done for the first time.”
Sentencing Murrell in June Lord Young said he had carried out a “calculated crime of dishonesty” but told the court he had been unable to identify a clear motive.
Image source, PA MediaPeter Murrell admitted embezzling £400,000 from the SNP earlier this year
Sturgeon continued: “I suddenly realised I had been living with somebody that I never really knew properly.
“That’s something for me to come to terms with, and I don’t think I’m there yet, but also for my family to come to terms with. It’s a really difficult process.”
The Glasgow home the couple shared was searched as part of Operation Branchform, as the police operation, as well as the SNP’s Edinburgh headquarters.
Murrell later admitted to embezzling a total of £400,310.65 between 12 August 2010 and 19 October 2022.
His largest single purchase was a £124,550 luxury motorhome, which he paid for entirely with party funds in 2020.
When it was seized by police three years later, it had only had only been driven four miles.
Earlier this week it emerged the SNP had written-off the cost of the motorhome after its accounts were published by the Electoral Commission.
Murrell also used party funds to buy high-end items including a £3,223 coffee machine, a £3,000 robotic lawn mower and £2,600 salt and pepper grinders.
Image source, Crown OfficeMurrell bought a £124,500 motorhome with SNP funds
Sturgeon also told Dale that she only discovered Murrell was due to plead guilty a week before he appeared in court on 25 May.
It later emerged he had been negotiating his plea for months, a fact which she said “hit me like a tonne of bricks”.
Sturgeon said: “He was still lying to me right up until the day he pled guilty.”
The former first minister added: “He was very isolated over that period, he very rarely left the house, he wasn’t communicative, I was a bit worried about his well-being and his mental health.
“And then, now I think: ‘What a mug, why were you worried about him?’ He didn’t worry about me. He didn’t worry at all about what he was doing.
“What he has subjected me to is beyond anything I could ever have comprehended.
“I don’t understand why he did it, he had no need to do it, I don’t think I will ever understand his motivations.
“But whatever that motivation was, he could not have stopped and ever thought about me.
“But I was, until recently, still worrying about him.”
Sturgeon – who had stepped down as first minister in March 2023 – was arrested In June 2023 but was later told that she was no longer under investigation.
The former first minister announced her separation from Murrell last year.
The former first minister also hit out at JK Rowling during the appearance, in response to a social media post made by the author on Friday.
In a post on X on Friday, Rowling described the former SNP leader as a “world-class misogynist”.
And she accused Sturgeon of being “profoundly disloyal” to her party following criticism of its election campaign in a new foreword for her book.
Asked by Dale if she wanted an “amnesty” with the Harry Potter author Sturgeon said she was not “at war”.
“She seems to be at war with me,” she said.
Rowling has been an outspoken critic of the former first minister, particularly since Sturgeon’s attempt to reform gender recognition laws in 2022.
The former first minister said: “We disagree on more than one thing – we disagree about independence, we clearly disagree on trans rights.
“My god, that woman is obsessed with me.”
