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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Politics
Katrine Bussey

‘Entirely appropriate’ for Lord Advocate to brief First Minister, Swinney says

It is ‘entirely appropriate’ for Lord Advocate to Dorothy Bain to brief the First Minister on ‘sensitive’ cases, John Swinney has insisted (Andrew Milligan/PA) -

John Swinney has insisted it is “entirely appropriate” for Scotland’s top law officer to brief him on “sensitive” court cases.

He spoke out after it emerged he had been given details of the scale of the embezzlement charge facing former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell back in March 2025 – almost a year before the details of this became public knowledge in February 2026.

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