Police Scotland has confirmed officers are still investigating fraud allegations over £295,000 of taxpayers' money which was handed to the publisher of a book of Nicola Sturgeon's speeches.
A criminal complaint was made about the awarding of cash by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) to Inverness-based Sandstone Press.
Run by Robert Davidson, it published Women Hold Up Half the Sky: Selected Speeches of Nicola Sturgeon. But concerns were raised about Sandstone Press after it was revealed that it was handed £120,000 in the 12 months leading up to the publication of that book.
Keith Charters, managing director of book firm Strident Publishing, complained to the police, alleging that Sandstone had been wrongly given the grant.
The Sunday Mail reported last year that police were also probing £175,000 of loans agreed with the company in 2019, which are all understood to have been drawn down.
Over the last 15 years, Sandstone has benefited from more than £500,000 of public money, when grants from Creative Scotland are also taken into account.
Charters has accused the publisher of making false statements about the number of people they employed, while HIE is alleged to have wrongly recorded the location of the firm, which increased its eligibility for financial support.
Speaking to the Sunday Mail, Charters said: "To date over £500,000 of public money has been used to prop up Sandstone Press.
"That includes the £120,000 it received in the 10 months prior to announcing it would be publishing a book of Nicola Sturgeon’s speeches in the week of the Scottish Parliament election.
"It is deeply concerning that, when we blew the whistle on how HIE had provided Sandstone with that £120,000 the response of her officials was to vilify us for daring to challenge on the basis of the evidence.
"That evidence not only indicated that Sandstone had claimed employees it did not have and a non-executive director it did not have, but that HIE had scored an application from the Inverness-based company as if it were not located in Inverness.
"In fact, its offices were less than half a mile from HIE’s Inverness headquarters."
Strident Publishing recently published new information on Twitter, claiming that Kate Forbes and Fergus Ewing were also made aware of the "suspected wrongdoing" in the Sandstone case, but did not do anything.
It called for Audit Scotland to investigate the funding.
Sturgeon's book was published four days after the Holyrood election in May 2021.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman declined to comment on the police investigation.
When approached by the Daily Record last year, when the news originally broke, Sandstone Press said: “We have not been contacted by Police Scotland, all funds received from HIE have come through due process.”
HIE, meanwhile, said it would defend any allegations robustly, adding: “We’ve not been contacted by Police Scotland in relation to any issues concerning Sandstone Press.
"An application to commence judicial review proceedings has been made to the Court of Session and HIE intends to defend this robustly.”
A Police Scotland spokeswoman told the Scottish Daily Express: "Information has been passed to police which is currently being assessed."
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