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

Of course they have

It would look dodgy if you wouldn't claim back VAT if you are allowed to do so. It would just draw attention, no?
I just submitted an expenses claim on our online portal for a work trip, nothing big, ~£150 over four invoices, flights and hotel had been paid for already. There were three other people involved, my line manager who had to ok it, one colleague in accounts who checked the invoices met the required standards, and another colleague who sent it for payment and I know that they look at the claim again at this point because I had him question something for a previous claim. I get notified by the system when every step is completed. I thought this was pretty standard.

From BBC article…“Murrell's lawyer indicated this week that the former chief executive had enough funds to repay the sum he embezzled from the party.”

So he’s got more than £400k saved away…how lovely. And he claimed (taxpayer funded) legal aid for his legal expenses? Nice Peter…what a creep.

Yes. So we had EVEL, Brexit, “Me Too”, then the whole Alex thing, then covid, I could go on.

She didn’t have an easy shift.

And she had people, some on here, who thought (and still do) that A admitting affairs, admitting he could have been “a better man” and saying that the sex that female employees didn’t want was “consensual”, was somehow Nicola and 10 complainants fault.

Then the whole self ID stuff which so many other countries made law without a bit of bother and all parties in Holyrood voting for it, yet it’s all her fault.

The whole Isla thing was something she had zero power over as she wasn’t FM or Justice Minister when the law was implemented- that was two men.

You should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.

Blaming a woman for men’s weaknesses on a platform that centres woman.

Not only that. Celebrating the worst of men.

It’s embarrassing.

The more Swinney refuses an investigation the guiltier they all look. If not of crime, most certainly of incompetence. There are 2 separate issues here. The SNP want you to feel sorry for them. Victims. Poor us. But, setting aside the crime, the lack of even basic scrutiny meant this crime was allowed to happen. It went undiscovered for years. No receipts provided. Any scrutiny shut down. Those requesting to see more detailed accounts were denied access. Ultimately, professionally, NS and JS are responsible for proper accounting and secure systems to protect donors, party funds and to show them as capable.

Is it any wonder so much money has been squandered on failed ferries and dangerous hospitals when they don’t seem to care enough to protect their own money properly.

SNP crisis management looks more like crisis extension

https://www.thetimes.com/article/1df057d2-6a66-4741-925e-e7b4069cba05?shareToken=be094610520da6ffa8b22808ecc2874d

It would look dodgy if you wouldn't claim back VAT if you are allowed to do so. It would just draw attention, no?

I would agree with that and wouldn't know the rules for claiming or not claiming. That's what accountants are for. Any big business I've worked for you submit your expenses and that's that, you have no idea what goes on after that with VAT and budgets and accounts and the rest of it, unless that's directly related to your job.

It would never have occurred to Murrell to even think about VAT claims, and yes, if it had, and he'd said to reclaim the VAT on £50k of leaflet printing but not £50k of his dodgy purchases, that would raise a whole field of red flags.

Their crisis management PR has been poor. Agree.

Plus, Alex Massie is an exceptionally good journalist and always worth a read on any topic.

Yes. It’s usually modern apprentices who do the checks for things like this. Just out of school. It’s not that hard. So there is no way on this planet, it would be senior people doing such a tedious task. Or signing it off. It would be people one step above them.

“Police Scotland has confirmed it won't be investigating the SNP Indyref fund after a fresh complaint because it's "already been investigated" as part of Branchform.” 👍

All three of my colleagues involved are not just out of school modern apprentices.
Managing the accounts of any organization properly is important, if Nicola Sturgeon felt herself to be too important or too busy to do this properly, she shouldn't have put her signature to the accounts. Not that she did a better job with governing Scotland either, what the fuck was she doing all day long?

More than you putting in tiny wee claims for “expenses”, I would imagine. Considering she was running a country.

It's not all I do and she was shit at running the country.

Tiny wee claims for 100 plus k camper vans with no receipt? This attitude towards money is shocking. Disrespectful to members, to the electorate and really not a good look for someone who proudly claimed to be all over the detail.

In your opinion. I could say the same about you but since I don’t know what big important jobs you were doing that warranted a massive £150 expenses claim, I wouldn’t want to comment.

You should maybe try reading the posts again.

And in my organisation everything has to be backed by a receipt or invoice and it is all checked by our in house accountant before being double checked at the annual audit.

I do agree with this. It’s systemic failure and needs to be looked into.

They're not just the SNP they’ve been our government for years. Corruption and poor leadership matters in government as does failure to obey the law (contempt)

This is even without the massive amounts squandered on failed court cases.

DH has to authorise expense claims for his team and he isn’t risking his job by not doing it properly- that’s what happens in the real world.

At my work it’s experienced civil servants who oversee and check expenses claims

Posted twice by accident: need a checker 😉

I'm trying to understand how he was able to claim legal aid. Can anyone explain?

Never had to claim legal aid myself and like you I assumed it was income related.

https://www.mygov.scot/legal-aid/criminal-cases

There's a lot about it here. It does also say if you click through a couple of pages that it's not 100% free or nothing at all, there's a sliding scale whereby depending on your income, you contribute. So it could be that he was paying a bit and they were topping it up, but nobody's saying.

I don't put in claims for "expenses". That's what Peter Murrell did. You shouldn't assume everyone else has the same lack of standards and honesty

Michael Matheson claimed nearly £11,000 for mobile data on his parliamentary iPad for his children watching football.

In my world an employee who not only breached IT security by allowing his family access to business equipment and who made that sort of claim would be instantly sacked. That was an "expenses" claim.