NICOLA Sturgeon has hit out at Scotland’s newspapers over their coverage of Peter Murrell’s embezzlement from the SNP, saying it is not “right” that she has “been on more front pages this week than my former husband”.
On Monday, Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,000 from the SNP from 2010 to 2022 – a period during which Sturgeon was SNP leader and first minister of Scotland for eight years.
She has since faced questions about what she may have known about her husband’s crimes, and has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Murrell’s embezzlement.
Speaking to journalist and author Francine Stock at the Hay Festival in Wales on Friday afternoon, the former first minister was asked about her comments the previous evening when she said it had been “the worst week” of her life.
Sturgeon said: “I've had some tough weeks in the past, both in my personal life and also as first minister. Covid was a pretty rough ride for any leader and for everybody, but I think this week has surpassed all of it.
“You've obviously read all of it in the media. It's a deeply painful thing personally to come to terms with, and I'm only in the foothills of coming to terms with the fact that the person I was married to for a long time is somebody I clearly didn't know as well as I thought I did, somebody who misled me, deceived me, lied to me, put me in considerable peril.”
She went on: “One of the things that's touched me this week is being contacted by a number of women who've had, not exactly the same experience, but have found themselves in situations where a husband has betrayed them, and shown some solidarity.
“Going through something like that privately is bad enough. I think what makes it so much more difficult is to go through it in the glare of publicity.
“I went through, and this was excruciating, a two-year police investigation at the end of which I was completely cleared and exonerated of any wrongdoing.
“But notwithstanding that, obviously there are people this week who have been very quick to point the finger of suspicion at me. I think my picture's been on more front pages in Scotland this week than my former husband's has, and I don't think that is right.”
Sturgeon said that “to some extent” she understands that “people will look at the situation and say, how could you not know?”
However, she went on: “A lot of it I've read about for the first time in the papers. I was reading stuff on Monday that I'd never known before, items that I don't know who they were bought for, I don't know where they were, but I didn't see them.
“Those things I was aware of, nothing made me think there were things he couldn't have afforded.
“We were on high salaries, we don't have kids. I was first minister, I was working round the clock, I wasn't at home that much, so there was nothing that would have aroused my suspicion, but inevitably you ask yourself all sorts of questions.”
Stock asked if there was a “fundamental contradiction” in Sturgeon hitting out at the media when it is “not publicity that you were unwilling to seek”.
“Oh, come on, come on,” the former first minister responded. “I've been somebody who's lived my life in the public eye. That does not mean I somehow deserve my husband turning out to have committed criminal offences.
“I don't deserve, because I've lived my life in the public eye trying to pursue a life of public service, which I've done and have had my ups and downs, made my more than my fair share of mistakes, I know, but I don't think that somehow justifies suddenly finding myself by some people – not by everybody, not by a long shot – vilified for the actions of others.”
Later during the appearance at the Hay Festival, Sturgeon spoke about her relationship with Alex Salmond – who was SNP leader during the first four years of Murrell’s embezzlement.
She was asked if, when she took over as SNP leader in 2014, she should have asked Murrell to step down as party chief executive.
Sturgeon said that with the “benefit of hindsight”, she would have.
“If I could turn the clock back, of course I would take a different decision,” she said.
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