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

@guinnessguzzler @Namingbaba Like a Tartan Noir version of The Thomas Crown Affair..?

Oh come on. Seriously. Nobody believes that for a millisecond.

My last message was a bit catty, apologies.

That however really isn’t evidence, suspicious yes and would have been used to support a prosecution if any evidence was found, but that is far from the standard of proof needed for a criminal charge.

The ick deepens the more I read what he spent it all on. Absolutely convinced there’s going to be a tidal wave of much younger men coming out the woodwork talking about how he was their sugar daddy 🫠 and that’s the best case scenario.

GTA, FOUR Nintendo DS3’s, PacMan, an XBox and a Switch….unfortunately still not enough to keep whoever it was for quiet for long….

@JustAnotherWhinger But they aren’t auditors though. They are “yes” people. What would they investigate? They didn’t have any suspicions. Who were the auditors? Surely when you are dealing with donations you record what you receive and your expenditure? They just did as they pleased I think.

You should probably know if he's got new car money in his savings or not, and if he does, have a rough idea where it's come from...

She would have to have been seriously stupid not to know and I don’t think she is stupid
The normal checks and balances you would expect when dealing with Other People’s Money seem to be wholly absent here

The finance and audit committee in those years either saw the funds being spent and allowed it, so are complicit in theft, or didn’t see the figures and didn’t raise it until the infighting began years later, and are therefore complicit in allowing it to happen until it didn’t suit them.

Theres also the question of what the external auditors saw or didn’t see over that 12 years as the company who quit did so relatively recently so were around before that.

For me there’s only three potential options -
Peter Murrell somehow managed to hide his spending from everyone like a master criminal - imo extremely unlikely.
Peter Murrell ran the party with such an iron fist nobody did any of the checks they were meant to on his spending or finances generally and therefore were culpable of allowing him to do so by neglect.
Or Peter Murrell was known to use funds inappropriately but nobody flagged it because it was common practise in the party and many of them were at it.

See Joanna Cherry is enjoying serving that revenge straight from the freezer 😂

writing an extra chapter to the book I gather…

I simply don't understand how he did it.

Often, when people are accused of embezzling funds, they transfer money into their account and then splurge by using their own cards, cheques etc.

But there is such a detailed list of what he is accused of taking illegally, including a 90th birthday card at about £5 and socks at £11.95. So the money wasn't shifted to his account - he was buying specific products directly from the SNP account.

When I worked for a large company, i controlled quite a hefty marketing budget but I couldn't spend a penny without a purchase order, which had to be signed off by various higher up managers, depending on the value. Even credit card purchases required a purchase order and expenses claims were highly scrutinised, and there was a limit as to what you could claim.

So how was he able to make these purchases? Who was signing them off, never mind auditing them? Was there actually a system at all?

The motor home was parked at his mother's house for several years. Nicola says first she knew about it was during the police investigation. Does this mean she never visited her elderly mother in law?

I reckon it was a combination of him having free reign on a company credit card and lax processes, alongside a culture of trust or fear, where nobody dared question or that there was simply no checks and balances in place.

The stuff he bought is outrageous, even if I was a millionaire I wouldn't be spending £2.6k on a salt and pepper grinder.

I think you are right. So who at the SNP was responsible for this sorry situation?

It makes me think of the formerly known as Prince Andrew allegations - in the Sunday Times at the weekend it was alleged that he had no line manager as a trade envoy and no one scrutinising what he was doing.

I just can't understand the need for a lavender marriage these days. Honestly, what's the point?

It's a complete lack of accountability, but also maybe of growing too quickly. You see it in businesses that take off quickly but the processes and back-end hasn't quite caught up, it leaves them wide open to risk - not just financial but cyber attacks, legal challenge etc.

Add into the mix that this is a political party, a lot of personal politics, power and control at play as well as people carving their own careers. Whistleblowing would've been like digging your own grave, but also your party's too. So quietly it continued, whether that was down to naivety or purposefully we'll probably never know the full story.

We only have to look back a short time to discover civil servants have credit cards to buy almost whatever they feel fit.
There is something rotten throughout all aspects of government.

The control from the top is so tight in the SNP too, strange none of them knew

The snp guy who reported them has been given pelters for being a traitor to the Party

Wings' take on it all.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-final-robbery/#more-157275

It’ll be interesting to see how his sentence compares to Natalie McGarry’s.

I don't entirely buy that. They had auditors, legal advisers. Presumably they had financially qualified people working there. Alex Salmond was an economist at The Royal Bank of Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon was a lawyer. This wasn't like eg a plumber suddenly running an empire and not knowing what needed doing.

Agreed. They're both younger than me - NS born 1970, PM 1964. I know even now some LGB people are shamefully treated by homophobic family, friends and colleagues, but would that really have applied here?

It doesn't make sense - particularly when you realise that the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives was open about her sexuality.

One set of auditors resigned when they realised that they weren't being allowed access to all necessary information.

And Kezia Dugdale’s sexuality was an open secret before she came out.

All the resignations happened after the journalist flagged up the issues, and years after his fiddling started.

The ones who resigned from the financial and audit committee did so in 2021 five months after the journalists posting.

and the company of auditors resigned “months” before Murrell was arrested in 2023.

Thats all at least 10 years after the 2010 date involved in his guilty plea. Be very very interesting to see what transparency and checks were happening before that journalist spoke up.

I see it’s being alleged that Salmond said he’d caught Murrell stealing £500 years agon