Peter Murrell sentencing leaves questions unanswered for SNP

There had been much expectation that the sentencing of Peter Murrell would fill in the blanks around one of the most extraordinary political scandals of the devolution era.

But even the judge at the High Court in Edinburgh had to say that he was left wondering just why the former chief executive of the SNP embezzled more than £400,000 from the party he led.

The closest that we got was the news that once Murrell had begun to rack up purchases on the SNP’s dime, he could not stop.

“It is very difficult to get a clear picture for what drove your actions,” Lord Young said. “Many of the high-value items acquired by you were not even used, and for my purposes today, I think it's sufficient to say that I cannot identify any factors which caused you to offend, which might be considered to be mitigatory factors.”

In cases such as this issues such as mental health problems or extraordinary debts are often raised by the defence to set out why their clients acted as they did.

There was none of that today, and indeed John Scullion KC was at pains to say that his client Murrell “does not consider himself worthy of sympathy”.

A prison term wasn’t just expected by Murrell, Scullion said, but the 61-year-old considered it was “entirely deserved”.

Lord Young thought the same and sentenced Murrell, who was married to party leader Nicola Sturgeon throughout his 12-year spree, to five years and three months imprisonment.

It would have been seven years without the early admission of guilt, the court heard, and Young wanted in part to deliver a “deterrent to any senior officials and other large organisations who might be tempted to abuse their position” in the way Murrell did.

Perhaps Scullion’s statement would provide greater deterrence than the tariff itself. It painted Murrell – once considered Scotland’s pre-eminent political strategist – as a man destroyed by his own actions.

“His plea of guilty is life-changing. It has ended his career and future career prospects,” Scullion said. “He has been ostracised by his friends and former colleagues. The nature of many of his purchases, detailed in the narrative and schedules to the indictment, has made him a figure of public ridicule.

“His humiliation will endure beyond any sentence your lordship imposes, and may prove lifelong. His future beyond custody is uncertain, but presently it appears bleak and solitary.”

The next few years are pretty certain for Murrell; they will be spent in jail.

But for the SNP, there remain questions about just how this happened – why the man at the top of the party was given free rein to mark his own homework, signing off his own expense claims without oversight and declining to use accounts programmes with the excuse that he – the chief executive – could not access them.

Murrell falsified receipts and claimed back spending by simply miscategorising purchases. An egg poacher? Written up as computer hardware. Watches worth £4.5k each? Explained as “event merchandise”.

It was criminality, the judge said, which was “not particularly sophisticated”.

And yet it played over 12 years. That’s longer than two parliamentary terms. It’s equivalent to three World Cup cycles. It is the same period that would take a child from birth to high school.

While Murrell started relatively small, the frequency and value of his offending increased over the period. Was this pattern of behaviour a reflection of the fact that questions were not being asked, or asked forcefully enough, by those closest to him?

The money will be repaid, we heard, from Murrell’s own funds. A Proceeds of Crime hearing is scheduled for September.

Many of the high-value items he bought using donated money “were not even used”, Young noted.

That would certainly include the famous campervan, which has driven a grand total of four miles Murrell covered between its collection in a Fife industrial estate and his mother’s house, where he left it parked in plain sight.

He will not now be planning the “inspirational” trips explored in the guide books he picked up from Amazon.

John Swinney has rightly said that the SNP has been the victim in this case. But it was also the party’s failures of leadership and process – a lack of rigour and a reliance on trust – which allowed Murrell’s offending to unfold.

Swinney has spoken of his hurt over the matter, and given the pair’s long association – boyhood friends, political comrades – that is not to be doubted. But what of the hurt to the party and the independence movement it leads?

Broader than that, what of the damage to trust in politics and institutions? You don’t have to be an SNP member or voter to be want answers, or to want better.

Since Murrell stood down, there has been a quiet overhaul of the SNP’s back office. His deputy chief executive, Sue Ruddick, also left the organisation, as did lawyer Scott Martin, with Julie Hepburn – wife of parliamentary business minister Jamie – brought in to oversee governance reforms by Humza Yousaf. The National Executive Committee is also much changed.

If the SNP is now a different beast to that headed by Murrell, to restore faith in its people and processes, it must face questions about his crimes, however embarrassing, without flinching.

Swinney may have rejected calls for a dedicated parliamentary inquiry, as indeed did the Scottish Parliament, but a probe may yet be held by the Scottish Affairs Committee, which has written to the Electoral Commission and the clerk of the House of Commons seeking further clarity about whether or not any public funds were misused – something Swinney has said did not happen.

Crimes of dishonesty are far from unknown in Scotland. Only last week, a former East Renfrewshire Council worker was sentenced for misappropriating £27,000 over a year and a half. Last year, an Aberdeenshire Council official was jailed for embezzling more than £1m over 17 years.

But these offences go against the trend. Crimes of dishonesty had been falling in Scotland over the last decade, at least until last year. Still significantly down from their 1991 peak, there was a six per cent increase between 2024-25, with 118,040 recorded by police.

The category includes shoplifting, which made up 45 per cent of cases, with ‘other theft’ at 26 per cent, fraud at 13 per cent, and ‘other dishonesty’ at four per cent.

This may be the broader context, but politics is a game of trust. Parties are built on it, as are reputations.

The SNP was once able to market itself as the fresh, clean face of politics. Prior to coming to power in 2007, it made much of the failures in standards by rivals, and has continued to do so over the years since.

The Murrell case has revealed not only the man’s personal failings, but the failings of the party to protect itself and its donors’ money. What a costly affair.

“It's all about your gain”, a detective is heard to ask Murrell in an interview clip released by police. “Your behaviour and embezzlement must have had a negative impact on the business. There must have been decisions to be made because the cash reserve was so low, and part of the reason they're low is you're theiving off them.

“What would you say to those people, those members, who ask you about that? What are you going to say to them when they ask you about it?”