28 May 2026

Simon Smith,BBC Scotland News, in Listowel, County Kerryand

James Delaney,BBC Scotland News

Nicola Sturgeon has said she was "deceived, betrayed and lied to" by her estranged husband Peter Murrell as he embezzled hundreds of thousands of pounds from the SNP.

The former first minister told an audience at her first public appearance since Murrell pleaded guilty that she was coming to terms with being married to someone she "did not know at all".

Murrell admitted embezzling £400,310.65 from the SNP between 12 August 2010 and 19 October 2022 at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday.

Sturgeon, who is in Ireland to promote her memoir, has consistently denied any knowledge of Murrell's crimes and was not charged after a police investigation.

He was remanded in custody following the plea and could face a lengthy prison term when he is sentenced on 23 June.

A narrative agreed by the defence and the Crown is due to be heard on 2 June.

Sturgeon appeared at a writers' event in Listowel, County Kerry, in conversation with author Andrew O'Hagan to promote her memoir, Frankly.

She told the audience it had been the "worst week of her life," adding she had dealt with the fallout from Murrell's plea in the public gaze.

Sturgeon said: "Just as other people have been, I have been deceived.

"I have been misled, I have been lied to and I have been betrayed, and I won't be the last woman who has been betrayed by her husband.

"The circumstances might be unusual and difficult."

She added that she would "probably need to sit with a therapist", saying that "this is a long-winded way of saying I am not OK".

She said: "I will be OK, I am a strong resilient person, I have had to be over the last few years, but this is a tough thing to come to terms (with).

"And it would be a tough thing to come to terms with for anyone who is dealing with this entirely privately, but I am not, I am having to deal with it in the full glare of publicity. So yes, it will be a process."

She previously described the day she was arrested as part of Operation Branchform - the name of the Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances - as the "worst day of her life".

She added: "The last few years have had some tough ones for me, but this one, I think, surpasses all of them."

Sturgeon was questioned by police as part of the probe, but was released without charge. She was told last year that she was no longer under investigation.

'Big misassumption'

Among Murrell's purchases were an array of kitchen and homeware, including numerous Le Creuset mugs and dishes and several coffee machines.

Sturgeon said she "had not spent much time" in the kitchen of the home the couple previously shared in Uddingston.

She added that she had not questioned where the goods had come from and assumed they could be afforded as both she and Murrell were high earners.

She said: "I know there are questions, I understand that. I would probably be asking as well if I was looking in from the outside on somebody else. 'How can she not have known?'.

"And I think underlying that question there is a big misassumption, which is that I knew anything about it, or that I knew all about it.

"I think everybody assumes that all of this stuff that it turns out my former husband was buying I knew about it, I just didn't question how he paid for it."

Sturgeon said she wanted to tell her side of the story, but would wait until the legal process was at an end to do so.

She said: "I'm not ok, but I will be ok."

Her comments were applauded by the audience who gave her a standing ovation when she stopped speaking.

He said he did not believe an inquiry was needed following a five-year "forensic" police investigation.

Operation Branchform began in 2021, investigating allegations of fundraising fraud within the SNP.

Her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said Sturgeon had later provided a "detailed written response" to Police Scotland questions.

Murrell spent more than 20 years as chief executive of the party before resigning in March 2023 due to controversy over details of membership numbers.

He was arrested less than three weeks later in connection with the Operation Branchform investigation into SNP funds.

Sturgeon became first minister and leader of the SNP in November 2014, succeeding Alex Salmond in the wake of the Scottish Independence Referendum.

Campbell Gunn, who acted as an adviser to both, claimed Salmond had warned Sturgeon that Murrell's position as chief executive was "untenable" while she was party leader.

Gunn told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme: "Nicola chose to ignore that advice.

"And I have to say, in retrospect, a lot of the grief that has engulfed the party over the past six or seven years could have been avoided had that advice been taken."