Peter Murrell embezzlement trial

[Sunnnyday]

Peter Murrell is in court in Edinburgh today. This is for the preliminary hearing which was postponed from before the election. It will be interesting to see how the criminal proceedings proceed.

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/peter-murrell-arrives-at-court-ahead-of-hearing-on-embezzlement-charges/ar-AA23Ybuy?ocid=msedgntp&pc

Jack McConnel was on the news this morning almost gleefully asking for an investigation, I actually laughed at how gloaty he was about the whole thing 😀

That is hilarious, the cows on the lawn 😀

Thanks for the archive link. I have so missed reading John Crace and he smashed this one.

didn't they sanctimoniously go after him for much less??

@GreatWhiteWail The thing about this interview was that Laura K let her wriggle and appear to lie. That’s the skill. NS said some very silly things and was playing for sympathy. Did anyone believe her? Of course not. It’s like Andrew MW and his interview with Emily Maitlis - it was not believable. The interviewers give them the rope…….

See, i don’t think Salmond’s comments, which he only made long after he left and after they’d fallen out, show him in a good light at all.

He chose Nicola Sturgeon as his running mate when he wanted back in. He knew that if the strategy was successful she’d be party leader temporarily while he changed from MP to MSP. Peter Murrell was CEO then. So it was a perfectly fine set up according to Alex Salmond while it suited him.

He also had her as his deputy and basically mentored her to be the next leader. Yet during that spell he put nothing in place to protect the party. Nor use his level of popularity and power to displace Murrell (the party leader cannot sack/get rid of the CEO as far as I can see - they are not actually in sole charge of everything).

Nor did he notice Murrell, who he’d known for many years longer than NS, thieving on his watch

Oh there will be howls of outrage at Westminster interfering in Scotland's governance if Westminster holds the enquiry.

I can't remember who made the comment but usually where any organisation or business has been defrauded they're usually aware of it long before the guilty verdict. And usually the organisation or business does indeed co-operate fully and assists the police because they'd like to get their money back.

Yes , they most certainly did

So glad you can find anything amusing in this situation

He did and covered it up.

No he didn't. He addressed it and repaid the money himself. He didn't bring the police in.

So he covered it up.

No, he managed it in the way he saw fit. It wasn't a secret in the Peterhead branch amongst office holders. Alex Salmond was a pretty caring guy. Always very kind to my family who were neighbours and constituents. Maybe too kind and forgiving for his own good as it turned out.

It’s particularly disgusting the way the Nats have turned on Salmond, the man who made the cause more mainstream.

I think a lot more will come out about that too

How do you spend nearly £2k on umbrellas?!?!

i was wondering about the brollies too, they aren't even nice looking brollies!

I actually found myself feeling sorry for him. Such a bizarre range of items, all being made public and the vast majority he seems to have done nothing with.
He's obviously got some deep rooted problems. Maybe it was the side-effects of being married to Nicola.

Appalling.

I presume his mitigation prior to sentencing will proffer evidence of mental distress of some sort.

The problem for Murrell however is that the bulk purchase of bog roll immediately prior to Nicola’s announcement not to stockpile bog roll indicates the premeditated self-interest and calculated venality of a very sane but selfish man.

His defence must be going to go in this direction, especially given so many unused items.

I'd be really interested to know the state of his personal finances; was this stuff he could have afforded to pay for himself but chose not to? He presumably had money at one point given the over £100k 'loan' he made to the party, or was all of that made up of funds he had already taken? Was he permanently broke or did he have money sitting in the bank while he was using the SNP credit card to pay for his lifestyle?

I don't really feel sorry for him because he is a grown man with the ability to thing through actions and consequences sitting in a very privileged position and with plenty of opportunity to seek help where needed. But it is quite the downfall and I have found I haven't wanted to watch any of the live footage from the court, for example, as I would find it too excruciating.

Thing is, if he had actually dealt with it at the time, we might never have got to this stage.

the bog roll 🤦‍♀️ suggests he, not in govt, was privy to government announcements yet to be made public.

Wouldnt be the first time the SNP have conflated party and state.

My theory is he was using his usual salaried income on the things he didn’t want NS to know about and the snp credit card for anything else.

now that we know the motor home only has 4 miles on the clock but the shower room was stocked with molton brown, are we to assume the purpose of it was as a shagging van?

But on your mother's driveway? Really?!

I think you're probably right that his salary was being spent on some dodgy stuff, I don't know if anything on any of that will ever be shared though. It really is mind-boggling.

Oh yes, the Campaign Bus. The bus where strategy was played out.

That’s a whole other investigation if you ask me.