In the meteor storm of the 56 SNP MPs that arrived in Westminster in 2015 after the independence referendum, Natalie McGarry was a star in the making.
Having already established herself a voice in the Women for Independence campaign, the then-34-year-old came out swinging against the British establishment and crusading for impoverished voters in the Glasgow East seat she won with a 31 per cent swing to the SNP.
McGarry came from a dynasty of SNP campaigners. Her mother was a prominent Fife councillor and her aunt, Tricia Marwick, became an SNP MSP and presiding officer of the Holyrood parliament.
However, it quickly became apparent that McGarry, like some others in the new band of MPs, had not undergone a rigorous SNP selection process and had been elevated beyond her ability.
The term “maverick” covers a lot of political behaviour but McGarry quickly found herself in the headlines for the wrong reasons.
There was a twitter spat with JK Rowling and an out of court settlement with the head of the Scotland in Union group after intemperate and false claims made online by the MP.
She was almost arrested after using her mobile phone in Turkey near a security point close to the Syrian border and had to be freed by the intervention of the British Embassy.
Although she described Westminster as an “out of touch institution” she had her wedding to David Meikle, a Glasgow Conservative councillor, blessed in the palace’s historic Chapel of St Mary Undercroft.
She later turned up in the Commons chamber for a commemorative photograph of the 2015 intake of female MPs wearing her wedding dress.
McGarry's starlight guttered pretty quickly when she was accused by fellow campaigners of swindling pro-independence groups and donations raised for Scotland’s poorest families.
Suspended from the SNP group in Westminster in 2016, she carried on as an MP until 2017 when she did not seek re-election.
At an earlier trial in 2019, she attempted to withdraw two guilty pleas of embezzlement from Women for Independence and the SNP Glasgow regional association. Her conviction was quashed and a retrial ordered.
On Thursday, after a six week trial, she was found guilty of embezzling £25,000 from two pro-independence groups and will face sentencing later.
