Nicola Sturgeon and the camper van – ‘the national treasurer didn’t draw it to my attention’

Former First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has so far evaded questions from the press this last week since her estranged husband Peter Murrell admitted to embezzlement at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday.

She put out several statements through her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, following Murrell’s guilty plea, but until Sunday she had not addressed the questions in person.

On Instagram on Monday she said: “I’m angry, hurt, sad, and very distressed about the impact of his, her ex-husband’s actions on family, friends, and the SNP. To be deceived and let down by the husband I loved and trusted will cause me acute pain. Why he acted as he did will always be beyond my comprehension.”

Later in the week

She was followed to a book event in Listowel, Co. Kerry in Ireland where, rather than speak to Sky’s Scotland Correspondent, Connor Gillies, whom she knows very well, she is said to have escaped through a kitchen. On Friday at another book related event at Hay on Wye in Wales she refused to answer any questions put to her. 

But, in a pre-recorded programme, the BBC aired an interview with Ms Sturgeon by Scottish journalist, and former political editor, Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday morning.

During the interview Ms Sturgeon was at times on the verge of tears – particularly when recounting that a gift from her husband, a necklace from Shetland Jewellery, and other items had turned out to be bought with party funds.

Asked firstly whether she really didn’t know, she answered in much the same way as the statements published on her behalf.

But she was asked if she remembered seeing the thousands (the price tag was around £124,000) spent on the motorhome which came to rest in her mother-in-law’s driveway in the party accounts. As SNP Leader she had a duty to sign off the accounts.

About the motorhome, she admitted she did ask Murrell in 2023 why he bought it, and he said that he had purchased it ahead of the 2021 election. Ms Sturgeon said: “The explanation was that because we still were under Covid restrictions and we didn’t know – he didn’t know – the extent of the Covid restrictions that would still be in place during the campaign, he thought a camper van would help get key communicators around the country, if we weren’t able to stay in hotels or whatever.”

As to the expense itself she said: “I don’t remember seeing it. The national treasurer didn’t draw it to my attention. As a member of the National Executive Committee of the SNP, the national treasurer would draw our attention to any items he thought we should pay particular attention to.”

She continued: “I look back on this and think, I wish I had. From memory, now that I’ve seen it, it doesn’t say motor home, it says motor vehicles. That could have been the rental of motor vehicles or something like that, so it didn’t particularly jump out as something that caused me to question things.”

“I didn’t know he was committing crimes”

Murrell had told her only the week before the preliminary hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday that he was going to plead guilty – but she had not seen him in the few days in between as she said she was not emotionally able to “deal with that. So he’s never sat down and given me his account.”

On the smaller items which in all added to more than £400,000 paid for by SNP funds, and the questions being asked by many people in Scotland, she said: “I absolutely didn’t know that he was committing crimes. I understand that question. It’s human nature. 

“If I was on the outside looking in on this happening to somebody else, it’s very probably a question I would be asking too. You know, I think that question, though, is based on a lot of assumptions that are perhaps understandable but are completely wrong. 

“The first assumption is that I knew about all of the things that he was purchasing. There’s a lot of the items that have been mentioned in the court documents, and therefore by extension in the press, that I wasn’t aware of. 

“Some of the items I was aware of, including things he bought for me as gifts and presented to me as gifts that he had bought for me. None of these things I would have looked at and thought, how on earth could he afford them? 

“You know, we were two people on high salaries. We don’t have children. We didn’t have, you know, an extensive social life, mainly because of the pressures of my job. We very rarely went on holiday, so we had incomes that would, as far as I could see, would have supported anything that I was seeing in my house.”

New information

A new nugget of information was that their arrangements included that Murrell paid the bills and she would “pass him a sum of money” to cover her share of the household expenses – and she cited the fact that she was working “round the clock most days” and wasn’t at home very often.

She denied, for example, having seen any of the watches he bought until they were asked about in the context of the police investigation, she admitted having a “decent coffee machine” (there were a few on the list of items Murrell purchased – a Miele machine costing £1,299, a JURA Giga machine costing £3,231.90, a Jura Bean to Coffee machine costing £1,865.75 or a Jura full automated Z8 costing £2,595).

She continued: “I have seen people laughing about it, you know, a pepper grinder worth £2,000. Now, I genuinely don’t know whether that is the pepper grinder that I was using in my house, but I also am genuinely not sure how I was meant to know it cost that amount of money. 

“I have been deceived, I’ve been lied to, I’ve been betrayed, as it turns out, over a lengthy period of time by somebody I thought I knew, by somebody I loved, by somebody I trusted and had never been given any reason until the last three years to think that I couldn’t trust.”

She added that Murrell has put her into a position of real peril and subjected her to public vilification, allowing her to be seen on camera using som of the things he bought. She said: “I’m now in a position that even some of my birthday presents and Christmas presents have turned out to be a lie. 

“That’s really difficult to come to terms with for anybody in private, but I’m doing this in the full glare of publicity. I understand why, because of his actions, I was subjected to a two year police investigation. I was exonerated. 

“If there had been a shred of evidence that I had been complicit in this or had known about what he was doing, then I wouldn’t have been cleared, but despite being cleared, I’ve still spent a week with having the finger of suspicion pointed at me.”

Party finances and resignations

Despite the fact that several members of the party resigned as they could not get straight answers on the finances – presumably from Peter Murrell – this did not flag up any special concerns to the former First Minister who was also leader of the party and responsible for signing off the accounts. 

Ms Kuenssberg set out the timeline: “People quit because of concerns over finances. And then you told the party’s ruling committee in March, ‘there is no reason for people to be concerned. All of us need to be careful about suggesting that there is.’

“You later then said in June 2021 ‘money hasn’t gone missing’. The party then released a statement about people who quit over finances, claiming it was part of an ongoing dirty tricks campaign, or conspiracy theory.”

Ms Sturgeon replied that until early 2023 there was “no suggestion that what was being looked into in terms of the finances was potential embezzlement”. It was in February 2023 that she called a hasty press conference at Bute House and tendered her resignation as First Minister, saying: “Since my first moments in the job, I have believed that part of serving well would be to know – almost instinctively – when the time is right to make way for someone else. And when that time comes, to have the courage to do so. 

“In my head and my heart I know that time is now.”

She left no clue at that point that the net was closing in on Murrell who then resigned as CEO of the party in March 2023 following disclosures about membership numbers which were in dispute. This was in the middle of a leadership contest for his wife’s successor, but he said he had no part in the leadership election. He was arrested the following month and then charged in April 2024.

And Sturgeon ended the interview on Sunday by saying that she is determined this doesn’t wreck her life. She said: “I’m determined that this doesn’t wreck my life. I’m determined that it doesn’t stop me going on to do the things I want to do, that it doesn’t stop me trying to find a bit of happiness in the next phase of my life.”

Labour comment

Scottish Labour Deputy Leader, Jackie Baillie, said: “I have no doubt that the tears Nicola Sturgeon has shed over her own predicament are genuine, but this interview leaves the public with more questions than answers. 

“But this isn’t a story of domestic deception that can be brushed under the carpet – at the height of this scandal it was Nicola Sturgeon who attempted to shame senior party figures demanding answers into silence. 

“As First Minister and leader of the SNP, she was ultimately responsible for signing off the party accounts in which Peter Murrell concealed his vast embezzlement.

“For years Nicola Sturgeon cultivated an image of being a leader who missed nothing and was across every detail. 

“Now she asks the public to believe she had neither knowledge of nor curiosity about how these luxury purchases were being funded.

“While Nicola Sturgeon feels sorry for herself, my sympathy lies with the people of Scotland and SNP members who were deceived. 

“They placed their trust in the SNP leadership and have every right to feel let down by a party that has become synonymous with secrecy, evasion and unanswered questions.

“This scandal will not disappear through carefully managed interviews. Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney and the SNP must finally come clean to a parliamentary inquiry that can get the answers Scotland deserves.”

Liberal Democrat comment

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “Both Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney were spinning that the SNP’s finances were in good shape instead of asking hard questions about what was going on. Unnamed SNP sources were trying to explain away the use of the camper van as a legitimate resource in the same week it was seized by police.

“It was a catastrophic failure of financial oversight. 

“John Swinney is wrong to try and block a parliamentary inquiry. The unanswered questions are eroding trust in our politics. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Why are SNP backbenchers still happy to just sit quietly and not ask questions?

“If the SNP leadership can’t be trusted with stewarding the finances of the SNP, why should we trust them with stewarding the finances of the country.”