Nicola Sturgeon STILL didn't know her husband stole £400,000

[Imdunfer]

Follow on from previous thread.

The press would have announced it, they’ll be watching the indexes like an absolute hawk.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/dorothy-bain-peter-murrell-unwittingly-37239012

“All the major parties – including the SNP – are committed to splitting the Lord Advocate's role, but little concrete action has been taken despite this having been flagged up as an issue since the 2000s.”

well if that isn’t a metaphor for Scotland these days I don’t know what is…

Oopsie.

I know I keep wittering on about the 'battle bus', but Swinney has just said again that the SNP could spend the referendum money as it wished because everything they do is for independence.

But from the evidence available to him, £125k of the SNP's money was spent on a motor vehicle that had just disappeared, and nobody was concerned.

Was nobody wondering why they weren't using the 'battle bus' for campaigning in the Scottish and UK elections that have occurred since it was added to the accounts?

@nicepotoftea it’s almost like all of the signatories to those accounts, didn’t even give them a cursory glance before ok-ing them….

From the information publicly available at the moment, Murrell considerably muddied the waters with false invoices, split payments, and different stories told at different times.

He created a false invoice for the motor home where it was described as a van, split the payments for it over five transactions using both a charge card and direct transfers, and then gave different explanations of it at different times depending on what people had found out.

And actually that raises another question; what did the dealership think of all this? How do people normally buy their vehicles? Surely not like that. It must have been somewhat surprising to them to have all these payments coming from different accounts. Are there any anti-money laundering regulations around large purchases like this? I'm surprised it didn't raise suspicion.

I think that’s exactly what has happened.

Money out £XXX - Receipts tally £XXX

Those figures match, everything has a code, sign off.

When I was still at school I worked for a house builders and the cheques needed two signatures. For most of the cheques the directors looked at the paperwork with it, either a purchase order or receipt, but if the cheque was raised at the request of another director they just signed without a glance. When a new MD came in they brought in a rule that the director who’d raised the request couldn’t sign the cheque. I was just a junior junior but the number of cheques decreased quite considerably!!

Yes, but none of that changes the fact that the 'battle bus' was listed in the accounts as an asset owned by the SNP.

I understand that they wouldn't have approved the purchase of a motorhome for Murrell's personal use, but reading the accounts, they thought they had spent £125K on a 'battle bus'.

Did they not wonder where it was parked? Who had the keys? Were they not concerned about whether it was insured? taxed? Did nobody suggest selling it to raise cash? It remained in the accounts throughout Humza Yousaf's leadership and was still in the last set of accounts when they were submitted to the Electoral Commission in July 2025

The argument is supposed to be that it didn't matter that the indyref fundraiser money wasn't spent on a referendum, because everything they spent contributed towards the campaign for independence. However, their lack of interest in the whereabouts of the battle bus suggests that nobody cared if they had driven £125K off a cliff.

Perhaps the reason is that the police investigation quickly revealed that the motorhome was dodgy, but if they knew that, why is it still in the accounts?

My understanding was that there was just the asset category of “motor vehicles”, nothing about a “battle bus” (which would be a very odd accounting category). I could be wrong.

They owned no other vehicles, so what did they think the money had been spent on?

In her interview Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP did habitually hire (and perhaps buy - I can’t recall) vehicles for campaigning purposes.

So since the cost was just listed as “motor vehicles” the assumption was this was just a cost for van and bus hire and so on. She did note there were multiple elections in this period, so that would have made it seem more plausible.

Yes, which suggested that she didn't understand what she was reading, which is rather worrying given that she was First Minister.

The 'motor vehicles' heading is in the balance sheet, so can only refer to an asset controlled by the organisation.

Even I - with my O Grade in Accounting from 1990 - understand the different between a balance sheet and expenditure statement.

Apparently Murrell sold a Portuguese villa shortly after being awarded legal aid for his defence.

It really does matter if Sturgeon is still married to this man. How can you dispose of a whole asset like a villa and not know? And what happened to the proceeds?

I don't think it was a whole villa. I think his parents owned a timeshare, which then passed to Peter and his sister.

It’s an asset of the marriage in all probability, I wonder why this is in part why Sturgeon felt so uncomfortable when asked about a contribution. I do not know what the legal position is in Scotland; but there could be recovery of assets, which could take priority over divorce?

Smells.

I think Sturgeon got arsey when quizzed about the main marital home, the one in Uddingston which was searched by Police. That may have to be sold - but given that she has moved out and the marriage is over, is that a big deal to her?

Well this goes to motive as to why Murrell did it. We don’t know. We do know that he didn’t just buy luxuries, but a vast amount of humble stuff like loo rolls and handcream.

The benefit to the lifestyle is clear. You have more cash to build assets like houses and so on. So Sturgeon may have known little about it. But the benefits in terms of her assets on divorce are there - Murrell using this account as a subsidy for their lives means she is actually better off!

Five years three months sentence for Murrell.
I think that’s fairly light considering Natalie McGarry got two years (then shortened by 4 months) for twenty grand.

They’ve frozen over 600k of assets under the proceeds of crime act, that includes half of the marital home with NS and two pensions

https://www.thetimes.com/article/eda5f851-74a2-4159-a862-03500f19ade1?shareToken=85fdccfd2d6ca6d956435be272a7c0d1

'Peter Murrell’s embezzlement of the SNP party funds may be “the tip of the iceberg”, a former MP has said.
Joanna Cherry claimed there were still unanswered questions about the party’s finances and accused the SNP leadership under Nicola Sturgeon of shutting down scrutiny. Sturgeon is not accused of any wrongdoing.'

My view on Nicola is that, either she was so dim and unaware that she didn’t even think to question all of Murrell’s spending - in which case, she should not have been running a lemonade stand, never mind a whole country, or she was bright enough and competent enough to run a country and therefore must have known what was going on. You cannot say you are a high flying politician but at the same time you are so stupid you didn’t question expensive handbags, coffee machines etc.

And her persistent refusals to listen to people’s concerns about the SNP finances looks like deliberate blindness and edges towards cover up.

I'm not sure if this will be readable, but the really key questions that shoudl be asked are of the Crown Office.

'...an exposé of the Crown's willful blindness to evidence and its targeting of Peter Murrell in order to protect Nicola Sturgeon and save the SNP from a £1M+ proceeds-of-crime seizure. The timeline of investigation shows a departure from what would be normal practice, and points to a neglect of duty to prosecute the fraudulent fundraising.'

https://x.com/GitUseless/status/2068589840061313356