Peter Murrell campervan was filled with embezzled goods, court hears

Peter Murrell faked invoices and used colleagues' accounts to embezzle £400,000 from the SNP, a court has heard.

The disgraced former chief executive of the party was led from the High Court in Edinburgh in handcuffs after a judge heard details of how he perpetrated a catalogue of thefts from the party he had helped build up.

He told other staff members he was unable to access the party’s expenses system and gave false paperwork and incorrect account codes to gain goods worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He claimed money spent on a Jaguar for personal purposes had instead been used for “staging” for a postponed tour by SNP figures.

And the high-spec campervan seized from his mother’s driveway was instead listed in a false invoice as a van.

The court heard that the luxury vehicle was delivered to Murrell personally at the Halbeath Industrial Estate in Dunfermline in 2021 and, with just four miles on the clock, had never moved again before it was impounded by police two years later.

The day after he ordered it he purchased “guides to inspirational journeys” around the UK and Ireland from Amazon and the vehicle was found filled with branded kitchen items and toiletries also purchased with SNP funds. This includes goods from Le Crueset and Joseph Joseph plus an Alessi teapot.

Murrell, 61, was the registered keeper of the vehicle and insured it only for “social, domestic and pleasure purposes”, Advocate Depute Alan Cameron KC told the court, and while he “suggested to other party employees that the motor home could have been used for campaigning purposes”, it never was and police found no SNP materials inside it. “It was configured exactly as a motor home used for pleasure would be,” Cameron said.

Murrell, the estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, admitted embezzlement stretching over 12 years and will appear in court again later this month for sentencing.

The court heard he gave no comment during initial police interviews and the misused money had come from the SNP’s principal bank account, which Murrell controlled.

Monies in that “came principally from membership fees and donations paid by party members and other donors and legacies”, Cameron said.

Murrell used a charge card in his name and the names of two colleagues who were unaware of his true purposes, the court heard.

While he had “direct access to the accounting system and could log items of expenditure himself”, he told others he was unable to access this.

Two watches each worth more than £4,500 were listed as purchases of “event merchandise”.

They were found by police in a search of SNP headquarters in Edinburgh and a travel watch roll worth more than £300 had been falsely registered as “staff expenses” incurred at a Glasgow hotel in 2017.

Oxo egg poachers costing £24 were put down under “computer hardware purchases” as ethernet cabling and more than 380 separate purchases were made through Amazon in the course of the offending. Most were delivered to his home or party offices but a “small number” went to family members.

Purchases included more than £1,000 in candles and reed diffusers from Jo Malone and a robotic lawnmower worth almost £3,100 – which had been “misdescribed” in accounting software as spending on legal fees.

A silver wine coaster from jewellers Hamilton & Inches was explained away as a “leadership expenses” and described as “silver presentation quaichs”.

It was recovered by police from the home Murrell shared with Sturgeon, who has said she had no knowledge of her husband’s actions.

Other items there included a fitted home library partly paid for through SNP funds, a bathroom vanity unit and a kitchen boiler unit.

Cameron said “majority” of the purchased items were not recovered during police searches in October 2019 and that, as chief executive, Murrell had “ultimate approval of all expense claims submitted, including his own”.