Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
25 Chambers Street
Edinburgh
EH1 1LA
4 June 2026
.
Dear Chief Constable and Crown Office,
RE: REQUEST FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION — ALLEGED
MISAPPROPRIATION OF RING-FENCED POLITICAL DONATIONS
I write to request that Police Scotland/COPFS open a criminal investigation into the alleged misappropriation of funds donated to the Scottish National Party (SNP) on the basis that those funds would be held and applied for a specific, designated purpose.
If you subscribe to the theory that it’s better to fight 100 duck-sized horses than a single horse-sized duck, the SNP is knocking it out of the park today.
Because the papers just can’t make their minds up about the biggest story with which to attack John Swinney’s beleaguered party.
You’ve had a few pretty gruelling pieces to get through in the last week or so, readers, so here’s something a little more light-hearted.
It’s from an episode of Broadcasting Scotland on 27 November 2020, a month after we confirmed our big story about the SNP accounts and the missing fundraiser money. In it, snug-toed SNP MP Pete Wishart opines that there really is nothing to worry about, and we should all just put our trust in the party.
We’ll leave you to judge whose opinion stood the test of time.
On Sunday, Nicola Sturgeon told Laura Kuenssberg that the SNP’s accounts “went up and down” as her excuse for not noticing that hundreds of thousands of pounds had suddenly vanished from them overnight.
Several things leap out immediately from that clip.
One, there absolutely very much WAS “something glaringly suspicious in the accounts that I should have seen” – the party she led had raised almost £700,000 in two “ring-fenced” fundraisers that wasn’t there any more, which ought to have made its leader at least mildly curious.
And two, attempting to fob responsibility off onto the independent auditors simply won’t wash. It’s not their job to determine whether the SNP has kept its political promises or not, their job is simply to match up money coming in against money going out and produce a set of numbers to show what it all adds up to. It makes no odds to them if it was spent on a party conference, a fancy motorhome or a 50-foot golden statue of Danny La Rue. All they can see is numbers.
But even leaving those things aside, if we’re going to learn anything about how The Great Indyref Swindle got to this calamitous point unchecked we need to examine just how hard Nicola Sturgeon had to look the other way to fail to see what was going on literally under her nose and literally in her own back yard.
To tell you the truth, readers, we’re suffering from a little bit of option paralysis at the moment, although happily not in the same way Peter Murrell is.
The endless torrent of revelations following on from Murrell’s conviction a week ago isn’t just fascinating in its own right – it also forces numerous historical issues to be seen in a new light. At any given second there are half-a-dozen different articles we could be writing, but also so many to read that it’s hard to find the time.
We suspect this matter is going to run and run all through the summer silly season because there are simply so many angles and so many unanswered questions.
Sadly, this turned out to be prescient this morning.
Laura Kuenssberg did give Nicola Sturgeon an uncomfortable time in their interview on her Sunday programme on BBC News, but when confronted with the one gaping open goal that Sturgeon has no answer for – and even when Sturgeon TWICE set it up on a plate for her – Kuenssberg failed to knock the ball into the empty net.
That doesn’t – by some distance – mean there was nothing of interest to note, though, so let’s take a walk through (the first instalment of) what was said.
Now that Nicola Sturgeon is finally free of her gruelling MSP workload, which could give her anything up to two extra hours of spare time a week, she might like to start making a proper dent in the contents of her fully-loaded bookshelves.
The multi-statement meltdown that has been the unravelling of Nicola Sturgeon this week has been quite something to behold. Last night, for example, we swear our Twitter feed presented these two tweets one after the other.
We’ll be honest with you, readers, if we were in a situation where a lawyer was issuing statements for us, this isn’t what we’d want to hear.
“If my client had been charged, she’d be in prison right now” is a worrying distance short of a vote of confidence in your client’s innocence.
But the statement Aamer Anwar put out for Nicola Sturgeon last night – her FOURTH in 48 hours, despite saying on Monday morning that she’d be making no further comment on the Peter Murrell case – had rather more wrong with it than even that.
David Blake on The Promise: “I think you are doing a great job exposing a huge scandal o am therefore reluctant to pick fault. But…” Jun 27, 06:54
Aidan on The Guilty Party: “Whilst that’s true Alf you aren’t entirely comparing like with like. The MV Finlaggan is a higher capacity vessel than…” Jun 27, 06:15
Young Lochinvar on The Guilty Party: “HMcH Whoa! Easy there tiger!! While I have a scintilla of sympathy with the thrust of what you are saying…” Jun 27, 04:17
Angus on The Promise: ““It’s time for action.” Those even more condemnable than the criminals are those who have deliberately failed to bring the…” Jun 27, 03:13
robertkknight on The Promise: “If it walks like a duck…” Jun 27, 00:48
Confounder on The Promise: “Yeah, but ‘No true Scotsman…yada, yada, yada.’” Jun 27, 00:34
Confounder on The Promise: “False logic in spades, there, I think.” Jun 27, 00:31
100%Yes on The Promise: “Thank you to you both, I never knew that.” Jun 27, 00:23
Spartan 117 on The Promise: “Quite possible, but I think Occam’s Razor would dictate its more likely they are just a bunch of corrupt degenerate…” Jun 26, 23:52
Effijy on The Promise: “https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1E6r5H6ZbK/?mibextid=wwXIfr Wee truthless the Baroness requiring her neck re-brassed.” Jun 26, 23:21
willie on The Promise: “Standard computer generated email response I suspect issued to anyone making a donation, with in this case, Mr Henderson being…” Jun 26, 23:16
sarah on The Promise: “When you’re sending the same email to a whole raft of people who don’t know each other and therefore don’t…” Jun 26, 22:38
robertkknight on The Promise: “What’s that stock response employed by other contributors to BTL in similar circumstances? Ah yes, I remember now… “Prick”” Jun 26, 22:09
Hatey McHateface on The Promise: “And if Police Scotland and the Crown Office charge various Scottish SNP names, and levy fines and other punishments on…” Jun 26, 20:31
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Promise: “Stuart Campbell’s Scottish Sun interview from 2 weeks ago is freely online here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1V9HuR2qU” Jun 26, 20:18
100%Yes on The Promise: “Why would Jim Henderson be sending a email from himself to himself?” Jun 26, 19:57
Alf Baird on The Guilty Party: ““The Pentalina and Alfred were a snippet of the cost of the Loch Seaforth, Glen Sannox or the Glen Rosa”…” Jun 26, 19:51
robertkknight on The Promise: “If Police Scotland and Crown Office decline to take any action with regard to the (missing) Indyref2 funds then that…” Jun 26, 19:26
Lorncal on The Promise: “There are certainly rules governed by statute for the disposal of ring-fenced funds in the charity sector and local government,…” Jun 26, 19:16
Young Lochinvar on The Guilty Party: “CC @ 11.09 I read your post, sometimes nodding in agreement, other times shaking it in disagreement. What I’d like…” Jun 26, 18:20
Jim Anderson on The Promise: “Whilst there is a clear case of maladministration by the SNP leadership they also have a fiduciary relationship in respect…” Jun 26, 17:57
Spartan 117 on The Promise: “Typically used when an eMail recipient list is kept secret, usually for GDPR or security.” Jun 26, 17:56
Anthem on The Promise: “Agents, I clocked that as well. Any explanation anyone?” Jun 26, 17:49
Paul Eden on The Promise: “It’s damming. And conclusive. I suspect they’ll get away with it but they shouldn’t.” Jun 26, 17:42
agentx on The Promise: “Just a minor point – the first email seems to be from Jim Henderson to Jim Henderson?” Jun 26, 17:18
robertkknight on The Promise: “Bang to rights!” Jun 26, 16:52
David Ferguson on The Promise: “It appears to me that the 9 March 2020 email is more legally damning. The others say that the money…” Jun 26, 16:37
Alf Baird on The Guilty Party: ““Stu is very much better at the forensic stuff than I am” You are too modest, Peter; few have reached…” Jun 26, 16:25
Brotyboy on The Promise: “Agreed. It’s almost the opposite of a tautology. This statement is false by virtue of the meanings of the words…” Jun 26, 16:24
