Nicola Sturgeon has revealed she has not spoken to her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, since he was jailed for embezzling more than £400,000 from the Scottish National Party (SNP), and has no intention of visiting him in prison. The former first minister made the comments during a podcast recording at the Edinburgh festival fringe with broadcaster Iain Dale, where she described herself as a “mug” for having worried about Murrell’s wellbeing and mental health earlier this year.
Betrayal and Lies
Sturgeon said Murrell lied to her until the day he pleaded guilty in court, and that she only discovered his guilty plea a week before the hearing. She later learned he had been negotiating the plea for months, which she said “hit me like a tonne of bricks.”
“He was still lying to me right up until the day he pled guilty,” she said. Murrell, 61, was sentenced to five years in June for embezzling party funds between 2010 and 2022, using the money for personal purchases including a motorhome, a Jaguar SUV, a VW Golf, boutique cosmetics, iPads, and a pair of Lalique Feuilles salt and pepper grinders worth £2,618.
Emotional Aftermath
Sturgeon, 55, expressed deep hurt and confusion over Murrell’s actions. “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,” she said.
She added that despite his betrayal, she had been worried about his isolation and mental health before his sentencing. “He was very isolated over that period, he very rarely left the house, he wasn’t communicative, I was a bit worried about his wellbeing 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.”
No Contact or Visits
Asked directly if she would visit Murrell in prison, Sturgeon replied: “No. I’m not going to speak to him, I’m not going to visit him.” She revealed that even on the day of his guilty plea, she was still learning new details of his crimes. “Over the years, he never really levelled with me. The day he pled guilty, I was still learning about some of the detail of what he had done for the first time. I suddenly realised I had been living with somebody that I never really knew properly,” she said.
Sturgeon acknowledged the difficulty of coming to terms with the situation, both for herself and her family. “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.”
Denial of Knowledge
Sturgeon has consistently denied any knowledge of Murrell’s crimes and was not charged following a police investigation. She previously admitted making an error of judgment by keeping Murrell on as SNP chief executive when she became party leader in November 2014, but has refused to apologise for his actions and denied ever “consciously” seeing the motorhome he bought and stored at her mother-in-law’s house.
The revelations add another chapter to the scandal that has rocked the SNP, with Murrell’s embezzlement spanning over a decade and involving significant sums of party money. Sturgeon’s public comments mark a definitive break from her former husband, as she continues to distance herself from his criminal activities.
