The Final Robbery
So there it is. We did tell you so.
There will be no trial, no cross-examination, no explanation. The people of Scotland, the members and supporters of the SNP, the wider Yes movement, none of us will ever know what really happened.
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
We’ll never find out how this could happen, for example.
But there we go. It’s more than six years now since Wings Over Scotland broke the story that hundreds of thousands of pounds were missing from the SNP’s accounts.
(Though so innocent were we at the time that we thought they’d at least been embezzled to be spent on the party’s political campaigning or paying off its debts.)
It’s five and a half years since our observation was proven right by the publishing of the party’s 2019 accounts, and its then-treasurer Colin Beattie responded by dismissing the allegation as a “social media conspiracy” and infamously said the money was “woven through” the accounts, presumably with invisible thread.
(Since despite this strident yet self-evident lie Beattie was released without charge, we must assume that he is innocent of any criminal wrongdoing and simply the worst, most jaw-droppingly incompetent treasurer an organisation ever had, unable to spot the best part of half a million quid vanishing into thin air on his watch.)
It’s more than five years since Wings exclusively broke the story that three members of the SNP’s Finance Committee had resigned after Murrell refused to let them examine the accounts to look for the missing money.
And since Nicola Sturgeon issued a dire warning to the rest of the NEC not to ask any awkward questions about the missing money or else.
And almost five years since then-SNP President Mike Russell furiously insisted that there was no money missing at all.
It’s also more than five years since we told you (the following month) that the police were officially investigating our discovery.
And since Scotland’s media jeeringly rubbished the story.
It’s now more than three years since Murrell, Sturgeon and Colin Beattie were arrested in connection with the missing money.
And it’s more than three years since Murrell’s successor as CEO of the SNP, and former Daily Record editor, Murray Foote predicted that the investigation would result in no charges.
It’s a little under three years since the former editor of Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper, Richard Walker, said it was all a lot of fuss over nothing and probably some sort of dastardly Unionist conspiracy.
Everyone whose job it was to tell you the truth lied to you. Except us. Peter Murrell was caught and is in prison today solely because of our story of January 2020, which the “trained journalists” of the Scottish media all missed when it was staring them blatantly in the face.
David Leask, may the good Lord bless him, still insists he was right.
And now some small measure of justice been served, too little and too late. Murrell’s thieving left the SNP crippled and all but bankrupt, the “ring-fenced referendum fund” lost forever, the independence movement a broken shell, the greatest chance there’ll ever be of securing Scotland’s nationhood blown in a reign of squalid petty theft, and we won’t even get to know how it happened as his rich still-wife, somehow ignorant of it all even as the shiny fruits of Murrell’s deception piled up in her kitchen, saunters off into the sunset, laughing at all the gullible suckers she left behind.
It’ll be interesting to see what sentence Murrell’s guilty plea – which spares Sturgeon her usual turn as a forgetful witness – gets him. We know Natalie McGarry got almost two years for embezzling £25,000 in very similar circumstances, so one would like to think that swindling 16 times as much would result in a significantly stiffer term.
But Scotland is so crooked after almost a decade with Mr and Mrs Murrell and their loyal appointees in charge that we’re not getting our hopes up.
The final vindication is of course nice. But ultimately, readers, this is, and now always will be, an untold story.
In every possible way, from start to finish, you got swindled.
Such a shame that organising honey traps to ruin a man’s reputation, then slandering him & hounding him until his health was ruined, is not considered a crime worth investigating. RIP Alex, the only man who might have achieved Independence for Scotland.
A little over £33,000 per year to be in something of a sham marriage with Sturgeon – I reckon he sold himself cheaply.
Wait a minute he admits to embezzling 400k plus from the SNP! What in the fuck happened to the 660k that wasn’t the SNP’s money?
So which spook agency is still protecting Sturgeon and keeping her out of a cell?
No embezzlement of funds charges reating to his period as CEO from 2001 to 2010.
He married Sturgeon in July 2010. His embezzling of funds began in August 2020.
1. The SNP has the option now of suing Murrell for recovery of the money he has admitted stealing from the party. Will be interesting to see if party high heid yins take up this option.
2. Murrell has put his hands up to stealing £400,310.65. That still leaves £250,000+ missing from the funds that should have been held in party accounts. Where is it and is anyone looking for it?
The excuse of doing it to “bankroll a lavish lifestyle he craved but could not afford” is such nonsense.
The embezzlement amounts to an average of £35k per year, and for most of that period, him and Sturgeon would have had a combined salary in excess of £200k per year.
Well done, Stu. Keep at it until the whole story is told.
We’re not going to get independence until it is.
£660k missing, £400k accounted for. What was deep throats advice in all the Presidents men?
Nicola Sturgeon has responded after her estranged husband Peter Murrell was remanded
She wrote on Instagram: “My reaction to the guilty plea tendered today by my former husband is difficult to put into words. I am angry, hurt, sad and very distressed about the impact of his actions on family, friends and the SNP.
“To be deceived and let down by a husband I loved and trusted has caused me acute pain. Why he acted as he did is, and always will be, beyond my comprehension.
“To be clear: I had no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever that he was using SNP funds for personal purposes. I am utterly appalled that he did so and cannot begin to understand why. That I was fully cleared after a thorough investigation underlines that these are not my crimes. I was misled just as others were.
“I know that there will be political discussion in light of what has happened, and I understand why. However, for me this has also been a profound personal trauma. I need to remain focussed on recovering from that and building a new phase of life. I will be making no further comment.”
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Absolute bollocks.
The COPFS didn’t prosecute the other two that were initially charged.
I suppose that doesn’t stop a private prosecution from an individual or individuals who have the inclination and monetary ballast.
Meanwhile Murrell and co still have the Salmond’s Misfeasance case being carried forward by the Gun man to look forward too (as well).