Arriving around two hours ahead of his day in court, it seemed Peter Murrell knew it was his final hours as a free man.

Carrying a large overnight bag, Mr Murrell, who once formed half of Scotland’s most powerful couple, made his way into the High Court in Edinburgh, with the knowledge of the drama that was about to unfold.

As the estranged husband of former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP’s erstwhile chief executive is no stranger to negotiating hordes of press photographers and journalists.

But this time the party bureaucrat was unable to evade the press pack – and this time they were there to learn the fate of him alone.

Ignoring their questions the 61-year-old, dressed in a dark blue suit and tie with a crisp white shirt, walked into the historic building on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

He eventually made his way into a private room with his lawyers, facing an agonising wait until his case was called.

When Murrell finally entered court three at 10.13am he was met with a packed room, with more than 40 members of the press and public in attendance.

Taking a seat in between two female security guards, what followed was an anxious five-minute wait for judge Lord Young to enter the room and his long-anticipated hearing to commence.

Come 10.17am, the room was ordered to rise, and over the next 19-or-so minutes Murrell sat silently and stared forward as he listened to proceedings.

Advocate Depute Alan Cameron read out dozens of alterations and deletions to the charge facing Murrell, to which his lawyer John Scullion, KC, submitted a guilty plea on his client’s behalf.

The charge he faced said he had embezzled £459,046.49 between August 12, 2010 and January 13, 2023.

But with the alterations the total sum Murrell admitted to had fallen to some £400,310.65. His spending took place between August 12, 2010 and October 19, 2022.

Lord Young told him: ‘You have pleaded guilty to a charge of embezzlement over a period of 12 years.

‘You embezzled just over £400,000 from the Scottish National Party.

‘As the chief executive officer of that organisation throughout that period your actions constitute a gross breach of trust.’

Just moments after the judge addressed the former SNP boss, Murrell was handcuffed by a security guard.

He avoided looking into the public gallery, located behind him, and he was taken down to the cells.

He now faces what could be a considerable sentence, a fate he will learn at another hearing next month.

It is a dramatic fall from grace for the man who ruled the SNP as its chief executive from 2001 to 2023.

Far from the respectable and trustworthy figure presented to the public, he has finally admitted the truth to what he had been up to for 12 years.

It was at around 11.37am when, in the back of a prison van, he was driven out of the court in the heart of the Old Town to his new home at one of Scotland’s overcrowded prisons.

With his tie removed he was strapped into a seat in the prison van with a bright red seatbelt.

Just as he did during his court hearing, Murrell stared straight ahead as he was driven away – leaving behind his once gilded life as one of the most powerful figures in Scottish politics to a new one behind bars.