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Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the BBC
00:56:31
Laura sits down with the former first minister and SNP leader
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Interviewer
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Laura (Host/Interviewer)
Hi, everyone, it's Laura here. Unless you've been living on a different planet, you'll doubtless have seen stories about the huge financial scandal that has engulfed the snp. Nicholas Sturgeon, the former First Minister of Scotland, was hit for a long time by allegations that financial impropriety in the party had been going on under her nose. But at the end of May, her husband, the Chief Executive, Peter Murrell, pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,000. There have been stories of buying pepper pots that cost £3,000, of buying Game Boys of PlayStations and of course, that notorious motorhome. But only Peter Murrell was ever charged. What did Nicola Sturgeon herself know about
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Interviewer
what was going on?
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Laura (Host/Interviewer)
She sat down with me to give for the first time her full account of the story. You can watch our conversation on iPlayer or YouTube, but here we thought you'd want to hear the longer version of our full conversation. And in the next episode in your feed, me, Henry and Joe pike will
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Interviewer
talk about what it means.
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Nicola Sturgeon
Newscast from the BBC,
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Interviewer
Nicola Sturgeon, thank you very much for speaking to us today. Everyone in the country is asking Peter Morrow, your husband, for many years pled guilty to stealing £400,000 from the party that you led. For many years, you've said you didn't know anything, but as the person who shared his life, as his wife, did you really not notice anything?
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Nicola Sturgeon
I absolutely didn't know that he was committing crimes. Look, I understand that question. It's human nature. If I was on the outside looking in on this happening to somebody else, it's very probably a question I would be asking too. You know, I think that question, though, is based on a lot of assumptions that are perhaps understandable, but are completely wrong. The first assumption is that I knew about all of the things that he was purchasing. There's a lot of the items that have been mentioned in the court documents and therefore, by extension in the press, that I wasn't aware of. These are things I had never seen. I'm reading, and some of it I was reading on Monday, the day he pled guilty for the first time, you know, items that I just wasn't aware of. And that's, you know, quite difficult for me to come to terms with some of the items I was aware of, including things he'd bought for me as gifts and presented to me as gifts that he had bought for me. None of these things I would have looked at and thought, how on earth could he afford them? You know, we were two people on high salaries, we don't have children, we. We didn't have an extensive social life, mainly because of the pressures of my job. We very rarely went on holiday. So we had incomes that would, as far as I could see, would have supported anything that I was seeing in my house. I think the other thing, which is just a fact of life, I was the First Minister of the country. I was working round the clock most days. You know, I wasn't at home very often. I didn't take much, if anything, to do with the administration of our household. I mean, just to explain how our finances worked, we had separate bank accounts. I never had any access to his bank account. He didn't have any to mine. Every month I would pass him a sum of money to cover my share of the household expenses and leave him to it and give him a bit more because I was First Minister. Occasionally I'd phone him up and say, run out of something. Will you get me this? So, no, I didn't know. And, you know, I'm not the first and unfortunately, I'm sure I won't be the last woman to be betrayed and lied to and misled by her husband. And that's what happened.
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Interviewer
But this was much more than the odd thing here or there or routine household items. Some of them were very basic. Even spent a few pounds on new toilet seats or a onesie. But he spent thousands of pounds on watches, thousands of pounds on pens, some of which you were pictures, using expensive handbags as gifts for you. Thousands of pounds on several coffee machines. These were a whole series of items that were far out of reach of the normal family.
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Nicola Sturgeon
I mean, you know, I appreciate this sounds, you know, will sound odd to some people. We weren't a normal family. I was the first Minister of. Of the country. But let me just, you know, take each bit of what you just put to me there. Expensive watches. I never saw those watches until they were asked about in the context of criminal investigation. I didn't know they existed. Peter didn't routinely wear a watch. So that's an example of the kind of item. I don't know who they were bought for. I don't know where they Were. I don't know where they are today. I wasn't aware of them. You mentioned a onesie. Never, never ever saw it. A coffee machine. We had a nice coffee machine in our house. We were on salaries that would not have made me question how we could have afforded a decent coffee machine.
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Interviewer
And a lot of people might think, okay, it's not that unusual in a relationship that one person does the bills, one person looks after the money. And absolutely, you were very busy, but he bought a Jaguar car worth More than £80,000 that sat in your driveway. Did you never have a conversation where
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Nicola Sturgeon
you got the money for from that, at that point? I didn't. I didn't. Peter has had cars in all the time we've been together. He would change his car periodically. I didn't drive, I had no interest in cars. He bought a Jaguar he wanted to change to an electric car. He told me that, you know, the range on the Jaguar was one that he thought was. Was good. And. And I again, I know a Jaguar is an expensive car, but we were on high salaries.
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Interviewer
I didn't ask him about the money in a normal way or what's the
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Nicola Sturgeon
deal, because that was something he was paying for himself. It wasn't something I was paying for. I had never asked him about his cars because I didn't have any interest in his cars. And, you know, some people might listen to me here and say, well, that seems odd. I think other people will probably say, well, yeah, I don't know where my partner's car, anything about my partner's car. I was over the course of this and remember, the offences he pled guilty to started before I was party leader, but in all of the. For the entirety of our marriage, I was either the Deputy First Minister or the First Minister. I was consumed by the responsibilities of my job. If he had been. I don't know, I don't even. I don't want to be flippant about this, but if he'd been, you know, bringing Tiffany diamonds into the house or something, but there was nothing that I saw or, you know, there's been in some of this, if it wasn't so awful and so serious. And I have seen people laughing about it, you know, a paper grinder worth £2,000. Now, I genuinely don't know whether that is the pepper grinder that I was using in my house, but I also am genuinely not sure how I was meant to know it cost that amount of money. Now, I have been deceived, I've been lied to. I've been betrayed, as it turns out, over a lengthy period of time by somebody I thought I knew, by somebody I loved, by somebody I trusted and had never been given any reason until the last three years to think that I couldn't trust.
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Interviewer
And are you angry with him?
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Nicola Sturgeon
Am I angry with him? I don't even think that begins to cover it because not only has he lied to me and betrayed me, and if this was an entirely private thing, that would be bad enough. I mean, I've been genuinely touched this week by some of the messages I've had by women who've been betrayed by their husbands, lied to by their husbands, not in identical circumstances, although some in, you know, not dissimilar circumstances. And speaking to me about the. Just the depth of heart they feel, and I feel all of that, but it's more than that. He has put me into a position of real peril. He has subjected me to public vilification, having the finger of suspicion pointed at me, you know, humiliation allowed me to be seen on camera using things, wearing a piece. And I can talk to you if you want about a particular piece of jewelry because deeply upsets me. The Shetlands, I'll come back to that in a second. But he has allowed me to be on camera with these things, things that I thought were birthday presents or Christmas presents or just gifts he bought me as, as my husband. And that's the other part of this. I'm now in a position of even some of my birthdays, presents and Christmas presents have turned out to be a lie. And that's really difficult to come to terms with for anybody in private. But I'm doing this in the full glare of publicity and I understand why, but I think the other thing that it's felt to me in the last week has just been conveniently cast to one side is that again, because of his actions, I was subjected to a two year police investigation, a police investigation that, you know, was clearly very well resourced, that was exhaustive and detailed and forensic. And at the end of that police investigation I was exonerated. If there had been a shred of evidence that I had been complicit in this or had known about what he was doing, then I wouldn't have been cleared. But despite being cleared, I've still spent a week with, with having the finger of suspicion pointed at me, and that is the question that started this section of our discussion was am I angry at him? Yes, I'm angry, but I'm also carrying a degree of hurt and I think a degree of trauma about. This whole episode resulted in me sitting in a police station under arrest. What he has done to me, I think will take me a very, very long time to recover from.
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Interviewer
Do you feel like you are a victim of his.
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Nicola Sturgeon
I'm a working class girl from the west of Scotland. I don't like victim terminology. I will never think of myself as a victim. The SNP's the victim in this crime and, you know, I. And that hurts me too, because I joined the SNP aged 16. It's not just a political party to me and, you know, obviously I led it for almost a decade. The SNP is like my extended family. I've fundraised for it like its other members have. I've had other people fundraise for election campaigns. I was the candidate in. I feel utterly distraught and distressed about the fact the SNP has been subjected to this. I refuse to think of myself as a victim and I will never describe myself as a victim, but my former husband has subjected me to things that I don't think anybody should be subjected
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Interviewer
to and I know you do want to talk about the personal impact on you and we'll come to that a bit more later on.
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Nicola Sturgeon
You wanted me to talk about the Shetland.
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Interviewer
Well, I was going to ask you about that necklace. You were pictured in that necklace on many, many occasions. The owner of the shop has revealed in the last few days that when you were there on a visit, your estranged husband said, I'm the one with the money.
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Nicola Sturgeon
Yeah, I didn't hear that, but he. It was during the by election in Shetland in 2019. I'd been campaigning a lot in Shetland and we went to visit, as part of the campaign, we went to visit this amazing business, this Shetland Jewellers and I. I was being shown around the shop and I stopped at this pendant. I mean, you've seen pictures of it, it's beautiful. Colours are vivid and lovely and I. I was admiring this pendant and then moved on and was getting shown around the rest of the shop. Later that night, Peter said to me, I've got a surprise for you. And I saw you admiring this pendant and gave me it. Sorry. I loved that necklace and I wore it a lot. And this is the other thing. The idea that I would have gone about wearing things that I had known were anything other than what they were presented to me as a gift from my husband. And I remember that night because I was. It had been a long day, I was tired and I remember saying to him, well, you know, you shouldn't have done that. But that's beautiful. I love that. And I loved. I had a. And I think I've seen pictures of me with it on, with this suit. I had a blue suit that the necklace really went beautifully with. And so that's the. These were things that my husband gave to me as gifts that I had no reason to question whether he could have. Of course he could have afforded them on the salary he was on, factored out my salary. And to then find out that these were gifts given to me that he bought with the party's money causes a level of, I don't know, pain, bewilderment. I don't know. I just. I'm not sure I'm going to try. I'm just not sure I will ever properly come to terms with that.
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Interviewer
Why do you think he did it?
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Nicola Sturgeon
I don't know. And I think over the, you know, over the last three years, since that awful day the police turned up at her house, I've never got to a point, and maybe Monday was the point. I got to where I thought I had. I knew the scale of this because I was still reading things on Monday that I had never known about, items that I had genuinely never seen.
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Interviewer
And that's when he pled guilty this week, if people hadn't.
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Nicola Sturgeon
And then some of the reporters reporting out of that, and I think. So over the last three years, I've. I've been angry, I've been hurt, I've been. I found it very difficult to deal with this because up until just over a year ago, I was also under investigation. And I've had periods, as I think any human being would have, thinking or hoping rather than thinking maybe there's some innocent explanation for all of this that is going to emerge and make it all make sense. But I think, to get to your question, I think the thing right now I am finding hardest. Well, not hardest, because, you know, there's many other aspects of it that are probably harder. But one of the things that I'm a rational person, I like to understand why things happen or at least be able to work out a theory about why things happen. And I can't, I don't know, because there was no need for him to use somebody else's money to buy the kind of things that he was buying.
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Interviewer
The difficulty for you in all of this is not, of course, just that it's affected you hugely personally. Clearly it has. You've said this has been the most difficult week of your life, but for all that time, you weren't just his wife. You were also the leader of the organisation that he was stealing from. And there's one item in particular, a motorhome worth more than £100,000. You can see the cost of motor vehicles in the party's accounts. That motorhome was parked in your mother in law's drive for a long time and yet you say you knew nothing about it. Did you visit your mother in law's house then?
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Nicola Sturgeon
Yeah, less than a handful of times. Probably because of. Partly because of work, partly. You know, my father in law, who I was close to, died the end of 2019. After he died, I found going to the house difficult. So I was there probably less than a handful of times. You walked past? No, no, no, I didn't. And this is, this is the thing. So just to be clear and remember, in all of my answers, the police have looked at this for two years in relation to me and they with the Crown Office decided that no action was to be made.
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Interviewer
I'm not asking about the police investigation, I'm asking did you see that motor?
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Nicola Sturgeon
I'm not aware of it. So basically, and I've seen pictures published in the media this week, my mother in law, my mother and father in law's house has a driveway in front of their house where we would park our car and then we'd go into the house where the motorhome was, was round the side of the house which is not immediately visible in the way that we went into the house and it's between their house and the next door neighbour's house. Now I genuinely, genuinely don't have any conscious memory of seeing that motorhome. If I saw it, I probably would have assumed it was a neighbor's. My mother and father in law were in their mid-80s. I would have just not. It wouldn't have crossed my mind it was theirs and it would never. Why would it have crossed my mind that it was the snps, that Peter had bought it?
- [18:11]
Interviewer
Well, if you go to somebody's house, a family member and there's a new vehicle parked in the drive, it's somewhere regularly. The thing is, it's a normal thing to say, oh, that's it. Or even to say your neighbour got a new.
- [18:23]
Nicola Sturgeon
It wasn't never discussed, never ever. I genuinely do not recall seeing it in a way that I registered it and thought, oh, there's a motorhome and you know the place that they live or lived, you know, it wouldn't have been unusual to see caravans or motorhomes. My in laws used to have years Ago used to have a caravan, but it's not in the driveway. The driveway of the house where we parked was. It was round the side of the house. Now, again, I would have no cause. I mean, imagine, just take a step back from this. There's a motorhome between their house and somebody else's house that I don't remember consciously registering. If I had, I would have probably subliminally just discounted it as belonging to a neighbour. What would have made me think, hold on a second, is that somehow something my former husband's bought for the snp?
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Interviewer
What did you think it was when you saw in the SNP's accounts in 2021 that shows clearly tens of thousands of pounds being spent on motor vehicles
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Nicola Sturgeon
from a political party that didn't register with me in the council. I would quite like to see it. I don't remember seeing it. The National Treasurer didn't draw it to my attention. Again, this is something where there's been a lot of stuff written that I've not been able to respond to in the last.
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Interviewer
And I want to ask you about that, but just to be clear on this point of the motorhome, because, you know, it's one thing that has really.
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Nicola Sturgeon
Yeah, I don't. I don't recall that jumping.
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Interviewer
I don't recall seeing it in the accounts.
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Nicola Sturgeon
No, I don't. And there's a line routinely used in the papers, not criticising the papers or on social media, about how I signed off the accounts. I didn't sign off SNP accounts. Leaders don't sign off the accounts. The process of accounts is that they are prepared, they are audited by professional auditors, by qualified accountants. The National Treasurer signs them and then presents them to the National Executive Committee,
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Interviewer
of which I'm a member of responsibility as an officer of the National Executive Committee and a responsibility as a party leader. So did you look carefully at the party's accounts when you were leaders or
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Nicola Sturgeon
did you, as a member of the nec, as all members of the nec, we would look at. The National Treasurer would present them. The National Treasurer would draw to our attention any items he thought we should pay particular attention to. And we would. And people in the NEC would ask questions, but no, I. And, you know, I look back on this and think, I wish I had sort of. The thing about it wasn't from memory, now that I've seen doesn't say motorhome, it says motor vehicles. That could have been the rental of motor vehicles or something like that. So it didn't particularly jump out as something that caused me to question things.
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Interviewer
So tens of thousands of pounds for vehicles didn't jump out.
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Nicola Sturgeon
But remember, in campaigns we would routinely, we would have buses on the road, branded buses. So the idea that there was expenditure in the SNP counts accounts on motor vehicles would not in and of itself have been something that looked unusual.
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Interviewer
Did you notice a drop in more than 300,000 pounds in the party's accounts in one year?
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Nicola Sturgeon
The party's income goes up and down depending on whether it's an election year.
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Interviewer
It's a drop of £300,000.
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Nicola Sturgeon
I don't know what year you're talking about 2019, but that would have been income related. That would have been to do with the income in terms of donations or the expenditure. Remember, we had, you know, snap elections during that point. It is not unusual for the party's financial position to fluctuate year on year.
- [21:56]
Interviewer
But my question is, do you remember seeing it? That's a significant change. Do you remember seeing a very significant change in that you had a responsibility as an officer of the party to monitor and to be aware of what was going on with the finances.
- [22:09]
Nicola Sturgeon
The finances of the SNP were such that we were able over those years. I mean, something I constantly or often talk about the eight elections. So the income and the expenditure of the S and P would fluctuate, the balance sheet would fluctuate. So it would not have been unusual to see changes in that. But it was also the case that that whether in 2017 or 2019, the party was able to spend around 1 million pounds in each of these election campaigns. The management of the finances was always something that was ongoing to make sure that we could fund the operations and the election activities of the snp.
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Interviewer
There's a bit of a clash, though, here, because as a fearsome politician, your reputation was for being completely fastidious across every detail. Some people actually even accused you of being a micromanager. But when it came to your party's accounts, well, it went up and down. You were looking, but you didn't notice things popping up in big ways.
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Nicola Sturgeon
That's always been the case. And that is making it sound as if there was something glaringly suspicious in the accounts that I should have seen and I didn't. The financial position of the party, like all parties, will ebb and flow and go up and down again. And I am, you know, the national Treasurer of the party was deceived and misled as well.
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Interviewer
But you were the boss, you were the leader and you had a responsibility as a I mean, what would you say to somebody who was running a different public organisation, who'd had a drop of £300,000 in the accounts and not
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Nicola Sturgeon
there will have been years where the income will have gone up again, the balance sheet of the party will have gone up again? The point I'm making is it fluctuates for a variety of different reasons. But the point I would make, these accounts that you're talking about were audited by, you know, professional auditors, by qualified accountants. I then rely on a national treasurer to say he's satisfied with accounts for them to be put forward to the National Executive Committee. So the idea, and I want to seriously challenge this, of course there will be ebbs and flows in the party's financial position, but the idea there was anything in the accounts that would have alerted me to what Peter pled guilty to on Monday is absolutely fundamentally untrue. And if there had been, I suspect the police and the Crown office might have reached a different position on me and they wouldn't have completely cleared me and taken absolutely no action against me in the way that happened.
- [24:32]
Interviewer
But people were trying to flag to you that there was something going on with the violence. Forgive me. Let me ask you this question. Several members of your party came forward with concerns about the party's finances in June 2021. By then, three members of the finance committee had quit because they were worried about what was going on with the finances and unable to get the answers that they wanted. The treasurer of the party then quit because he was worried and not able to get answers about the finances. People were trying to alert the party to concerns about financial goings on.
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Nicola Sturgeon
I reject completely the notion that people were trying to alert the party to the kind of behaviour that Peter pled guilty in Monday.
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Interviewer
That's not my question. People were alerting you and the snp, some of them publicly, to concerns they had about the party's finances.
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Nicola Sturgeon
The concerns. But I want to talk.
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Interviewer
What did you about that? Did you do anything about that as the committee's leader?
- [25:38]
Nicola Sturgeon
The concerns were, and remember, by this time there was a police investigation underway. So I also had to be careful that I was not doing anything to step on the toes of a police investigation. The police investigation started around, if memory serves me correctly, the spring of 2021. So by this time that these concerns were being raised, the police were looking into the SNP finances.
- [26:01]
Interviewer
Forgive me, Nicholas. Sergeant, People quit because of concerns over finances. And then you told the party's ruling committee in March there is no reason for people to be concerned, all of us need to be careful about suggesting that there is. You later then said in June 2021, money hasn't gone missing. The party then released a statement about people who quit over finances, claiming it was part of an ongoing dirty trick.
- [26:27]
Nicola Sturgeon
Stop. There was at that point, a lot of politics. Again, can I. Can I just take these things in turn? Because I understand why people look at that and look at what happened on Monday and draw that connection. Until probably early 2023, there was no suggestion that what was being looked into in terms of the finances was potential embezzlement. The issue that was being looked into was whether the £600,000 that had been raised to fund a second independence referendum had been used for election campaigning. And my comments were saying that the £600,000, although it didn't sit in a separate bank account, was there and realizable for a referendum campaign. When that happened, that's what my comments were about, that the party's underlying financial health was good and strong. And it was. And the evidence for that is that, as I said earlier on these snap elections, we were able to realise money to fight those elections. No, can I finish my point? And people were raising concerns in that context. The idea that I tried to stop them is not true.
- [27:36]
Interviewer
What did you do then? When people raised concerns, what did you do?
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Nicola Sturgeon
These things were discussed at the National Executive Committee.
- [27:41]
Interviewer
What did you do about it?
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Nicola Sturgeon
We explained how the 600. Remember, at that point, this was not a question about somebody in the embezzling funds. So I didn't do anything about that because that wasn't raised at that point. What we did at that point was spend significant time and there was a communication issued. I don't know if it was the one you referred to by the National Treasurer at the time, explaining how the £600,000 was handled within the party's accounts, that it was all coded as being for the independence referendum and it was used in a cash flow basis. So we did take steps to try to explain exactly what the answers were to those concerns. The other point about those comments that I made back In, I think, March 2021, at that point, I was frustrated that there were some people who were on the National Executive Committee who were also leaking things to the press. And actually, the point I was making that day was that the National Executive Committee had a job to. To do to make sure it was satisfied about the party's accounts.
- [28:43]
Interviewer
People with concerns about finances in your party went to the press because they didn't think that you and Your estranged husband were being transparent about what was going on. There is a pattern of a series of different people raising red flags about concerns in the party's finances. Nobody and you, at that point, didn't give them the answers that they were seeking.
- [29:07]
Nicola Sturgeon
The concerns that were being raised were about the management within the party's accounts of the £600,000. Nobody. Nobody. And I want to be very clear, and we did take steps to reassure people and the National Treasurer, because, you know, it was the National Treasurer that was responsible for doing this and did that steps were taken to explain and reassure people how that money was being accounted for.
- [29:32]
Interviewer
Your party accused people, people raising concerns of circulating conspiracy theories.
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Nicola Sturgeon
There were accusations being made at the time that we didn't really want an independence referendum that would raise this money on false pretenses. That's what was being referred to. There was a sort of. It was all wrapped up in the debate about whether I was doing enough
- [29:49]
Interviewer
to secure an independence referendum. Transparent in the books.
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Nicola Sturgeon
That's not. We took very careful steps and there is documentary evidence of this, to explain how that money was being managed. And my comments about. They weren't my comments, but comments about, you know, politics around this is because at this point, this was a debate about finances all wrapped up in this debate about an independence referendum. This is the point I want to be very clear about. And it gets. These things have become very conflated. There was no occasion, no occasion that somebody came to me and said, we're concerned that somebody is embezzling money from the S. And. And there was nothing ever in the accounts. If qualified auditors weren't able to see that when they approved the accounts, I'm not sure how I, or the National Treasurer should have been able to see that. One of the things that was said, you know, and this pains me deeply, pains me very deeply on Monday by the police, was the extent to which Peter had gone to cover up what he was doing. And yes, there are questions that you're asking me legitimately about how the party's finances were managed and the discussions around that. But none of that, absolutely none of that explains or makes other people responsible for the fact that one man committed a crime.
- [31:13]
Interviewer
It doesn't excuse his embezzling, it doesn't excuse his crimes. But there was a pattern that when repeatedly people were asking questions of you and the party pushing for more transparency about how money was being spent and
- [31:29]
Nicola Sturgeon
they didn't get it, do you wish
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Interviewer
you'd done it differently?
- [31:32]
Nicola Sturgeon
No, I don't accept that's True. Nobody. And this is where it has been made to sound like something it's not. Nobody was coming to me and saying, we think money's been spent on items that are not so please be more
- [31:45]
Interviewer
transparent with the finances. The treasurer quit over this and the
- [31:50]
Nicola Sturgeon
treasurer that came in after him sent out a very detailed explanation in the interest of transparency. Explaining. Exactly. Remember, I go back to this. This was not concerns about embezzlement of funds. This was concerns about we'd raise money for an independence referendum and was it being used for election campaigning. And contrary to nothing being done to try to assuage these concerns, steps were taken to try to explain how that money was being coded and dealt with within the cash flow of the party.
- [32:24]
Interviewer
When did you begin to suspect that there had been wrongdoing?
- [32:30]
Nicola Sturgeon
Early in 2023. So not that I suspected there had been wrongdoing early in 2023. Around about the spring, I think, of 2023, there was. It became clear that some people who were being interviewed by the police were being asked not just about this issue of, you know, referendum funding used for election campaigns, but there were questions being asked about the purchase of individual items.
- [33:00]
Interviewer
You had no inkling up until that point?
- [33:02]
Nicola Sturgeon
No. This was about embezzlement of funds to buy items? Absolutely not.
- [33:08]
Interviewer
At that point, did you discuss or confront your former husband about what had been going on?
- [33:16]
Nicola Sturgeon
I was hearing things secondhand about things that witnesses were being asked about. And I did ask him, but at that point, it wasn't anything like we've heard of. So one time I do remember confronting him was when I found out about the camper van in early 2023. I asked him why on earth he bought a campervan. And the explanation I got then was that this had been. He bought it in advance of the 2021 election. The explanation was that because we still were under Covid restrictions and we didn't know. He didn't know the extent of the COVID restrictions that would still be in place during the campaign. He thought a campervan, you know, would help get key communicators around the country if we weren't able to stay in hotels or whatever. That was his explanation. It also seemed to me that others had known, not before he bought it, but in the run up to the campaign. There had been others in, you know, party headquarters who'd been a part of these discussions about it being used as a campaign vehicle. So, yes, when things like that, when I became aware of them and I became aware of the campervan in 20, 23, then, yes, I did ask him questions about it, but to be clear, a lot of what we are now talking about I have become aware of in some cases as recently as Monday this week.
- [34:41]
Interviewer
Well, I was going to ask you that question. At what point did he admit to you that he had been breaking the law?
- [34:49]
Nicola Sturgeon
He's never. He told me sometime last week, the week before Monday, that he was going to plead guilty. I don't, you know, this case is still live in the terms of sentencing, so I don't want to sort of get too far into legal proceedings. He told me he was going to plead guilty, but he has never really. I've not really. I've not been at home. I haven't seen him for, you know, I haven't seen him from the point he told me he was going to plead guilty until he pled guilty on Monday because I wasn't able to just emotionally wasn't able to deal with that. So he's never sat down and given me his account. Now, presumably I will hear his account from the court at some point, but he's never given me an explanation.
- [35:46]
Interviewer
Have you asked him for one?
- [35:49]
Nicola Sturgeon
Yeah, but he's never given it to me.
- [35:53]
Interviewer
What does he say?
- [35:54]
Nicola Sturgeon
Look, I. It's for him to speak for himself. I. I spent this week, You know, I had. I was at an event last night and this is not a criticism of any journalist or any. I totally understand why this is the case, but I end up with a camera in my face with somebody shouting a question at me. Will you apologize? Will you apologize? Now I'm sitting here answering questions about my role as party leader and trying to explain things in a way that I think is fair, which I think is contrary to some of the reporting of this in the media over the past three years. I take responsibility for my actions. I always have done, for my decisions. I've been investigated by the police for two years over this. I'm not going to sit here and apologize for somebody else's crimes. I don't think that's fair or right. Nor can I sit here and try to explain the reasons for somebody else's crimes. It's for him to do that. It's not for me to do that.
- [36:55]
Interviewer
But are you sorry that during the time you were in charge, you didn't ask more questions about what was going on? You didn't respond more fully when people were raising red flags about the overall financial position? Are you sorry for any of this?
- [37:11]
Nicola Sturgeon
I'm deeply sorry this has happened. I am deeply sorry this has happened, but I, Peter went to, as we now know, great lengths to cover his tracks. Professional auditors didn't pick up what he was doing and presumably they asked lots of questions in preparing the accounts. The National Treasurer didn't and no, neither did I. But I reject the fact that I didn't, you know, do my job in terms of the overall, can I finish this point? Scrutiny of the party finances, but I genuinely do not know what questions I could have asked over the last years that this was happening that would have uncovered the embezzlement of somebody who was covering his tracks to such an extent that professional accountants and qualified auditors didn't identify that when they were preparing the party's accounts.
- [38:03]
Interviewer
But as the strong and well respected politician dominant for so many years, you always would insist that other political leaders would take responsibility in their parties when things went wrong. And I just wonder, in that vein, do you want to today say sorry to SNP members who ran Coffee Current gave part of their wages to the snp? Do you want to say sorry to them for what happened, which ended up with your husband and you having luxurious items in your room? Hold on, I'm not suggesting you knew about it.
- [38:47]
Nicola Sturgeon
I did not have luxurious items in my house that I would have thought I couldn't or my husband couldn't have afforded. I don't live, I live a nice good life because of the salaries I've earned. The idea that I live some kind of luxurious life is not the case. But can I just, on your point, I am an SNP member. I've done the call coffee mornings. You know, there's a running joke in my constituency. Even when I was first minister, I used to sell the raffle tickets at the fundraiser events. I've given part of my wages and all the time I've been a politician to the snp, I am one of those members and I am deeply sorry that it happened. And yes, I think party leaders should take responsibility for things that go wrong in their parties. And I have never shied away from doing that. But I've never called on anybody to apologize for the crimes of other people, particularly when they have been investigated and cleared of any criminal wrongdoing themselves. And I, for my own sake. But you know, for the sake of people out there, a lot of women who end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives, I'm not going to contribute to that kind of sense that I am responsible for somebody else's crimes. I will take responsibility for the things I do the decisions I make. I'm sitting here with you right now answering questions because I believe strongly in that accountability. But I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed. And I'm not going to apologise for somebody else's crimes.
- [40:16]
Interviewer
But do you think you bear no responsibility for one of the biggest political scandals that took place on your watch as leader of that party? That's a different thing to saying you're responsible for his crimes.
- [40:30]
Nicola Sturgeon
No, but it's not because he perpetrated a crime on the snp. By definition, that included me as the party leader. He misled, he deceived, he, as you know, I heard the police talking about on Monday, created false invoices. He went to great lengths to cover his tracks and I am not responsible for that. I was misled, I was deceived as party leader as well as his wife. And, you know, the fact that I am sitting here answering questions, you know, I've heard it said lots of times in the past and I've always thought, you know, that's a bit wrong, that when somebody commits a crime and they get sent to prison, you know, they get the easy end of it and it's the people left on the outside answering the questions. I have absolutely understood that this week. I'm sure Peter's not having the time of his life right now, but he's not the one having to answer questions and be vilified. I think my face has been on more front pages this week than his has. He's serving and will be serving a sentence for a crime he committed. I'm out here feeling as if I'm serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit. So I will answer questions about all the things you've been asking me questions about, just like I will never consider myself a victim. I am not going to take responsibility for somebody else's crimes. He betrayed me. He has lied to me repeatedly over years. And another point that's worth just putting on the record, this behaviour didn't start when I became party leader. The behaviour he pled guilty to on Monday started years before I became party leader. So I will not apologise for the crimes of somebody else.
- [42:25]
Interviewer
Was it a mistake, though, not to listen to your old mentor, Alex Salmond, who warned you when you became party leader that your husband being the chief executive while you were doing that job was a bad idea?
- [42:38]
Nicola Sturgeon
So here's an example of me taking responsibility for my decisions. With hindsight, yes, it was, but. And there's a big caveat here, this behaviour didn't start when I became party leader. It had gone on for years before then. And secondly, it doesn't make me responsible for the fact that he used the position he was in to lie and deceive and mislead and coverage tracks to commit a crime. But, yes, with hindsight, and I've explained why I took the decision I did, so I won't rehearse that, but of course, with hindsight, I wish I could go back and take a different decision.
- [43:12]
Interviewer
One of the things there's been a lot of discussion of this week was your decision to say no comment during hours of that police interview. You've been accused of doing that in the way that shows that you were trying to come cover something up. But can you explain to people why you did that? And I know that you later gave a written submission to the police. If you're, as you are today, very confident that you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, would you publish that written submission?
- [43:44]
Nicola Sturgeon
I'd take legal advice on that because it was a document that was passed to the Crown Office and to the police. But, you know, I can't think of anything in it that I wouldn't want. I mean, basically, it's the kind of. It's interesting. Some of the things we've been talking about and some of the items that I've read about in the press in recent days, I was never asked about by the police. So that's another factor in this. There are things that I genuinely, as of Monday, was learning for the first time. But let me answer your question. When I found myself arrested and being interviewed by the police, I was in a state of almost complete collapse. I was terrified, I was bewildered. I was in a state of, you know, high stress and anxiety. I instructed a lawyer, a very experienced lawyer, who told me that he was going to advise me to do the same as he advises every client in that situation, is to not answer the questions then in such a state of stress. And if I wanted to do that afterwards, I could do that in the way I did. I accepted that advice and I would challenge anybody in the state I was in there to go in and do something different to what a very experienced lawyer was advising them to do. In the aftermath of that interview, I prepared a very detailed written document answering the questions that had been put to me that was sent by my lawyer to both the Crown Office and the police in the summer of 2023. I heard nothing more. They didn't come back to me asking more Questions. They didn't ask for clarification. The next thing I heard from the police was that I had been cleared and no action was being taken against me. So the idea that I did not fully cooperate with the police is not true. I did fully cooperate with the police.
- [45:24]
Interviewer
This isn't a news story for you. It's your life.
- [45:28]
Nicola Sturgeon
Indeed.
- [45:29]
Interviewer
And you've been very open about the fact. It's been a trauma for you, to use your word. But much of your explanation for how you didn't realize, just listening to you today has been that, in a sense, you and Peter Murray were living separate lives.
- [45:45]
Nicola Sturgeon
I don't think we weren't living separate lives back then. We were living. I was the first minister of the country. That was my principal preoccupation. Every day I worked. I'm not trying to garner sympathy here. Lots of people work hard, but I was working, like, ridiculous hours, you know, from early in the morning till, you know, we into early the next morning. And obviously, you know, the COVID period is a small, you know, proportion of the time over which he was committing these offenses. But, you know, that then intensified that. I was in Bute House for part of the week. I wasn't at home. I didn't. I mean, I. This is not just because I was first minister. I've never been a particularly domesticated individual, which will come as a huge shock, not to people who know me. I didn't cook. I wasn't interested in the garden, so I wasn't. I gave Peter money every month to cover my share of the expenses. He dealt with most of the admin of our house. I'm not sure. I genuinely don't know. I'm not sure how completely unusual that kind of relationship is in professional working couples. So it wasn't that we were living separate lives. It was that my work was my life and I didn't have much time for anything outside of my work. It was my total focus.
- [47:02]
Interviewer
Should donors to the SNP whose money was spent criminally get their money back? Would you contribute to that in some way?
- [47:09]
Nicola Sturgeon
What do you mean, would I contribute to that in some way?
- [47:11]
Interviewer
Well, you still have the asset of your marital home.
- [47:16]
Nicola Sturgeon
My marital home wasn't bought by.
- [47:20]
Interviewer
But if money could be returned.
- [47:21]
Nicola Sturgeon
It's just a question.
- [47:21]
Interviewer
There are people who are deeply upset in your party about this.
- [47:25]
Nicola Sturgeon
Should they get their money? That's a matter for the current party leader. But can I say, I don't know how much you know about this, but there will now be, I would imagine, a legal process to recover the money from Peter that he embezzled from the snp. So that will be a legal process. I am not guilty of that embezzlement. So nothing that belongs to me should be part of that. Rightly, it should not be part of that, but will that process impact on me? Of course it will. So the idea that emotionally, practically, in any sense, I just skip away from this is not true. And that's why I say what I said earlier on. Peter will pay a price, rightly, for what he's done, but he's paying a price for something he did do. The price I pay is for something I didn't do. And I'm not saying that for sympathy. I'm just saying it because it possibly is the worst feeling in the world to be blamed for the actions of somebody else, and particularly when that person is somebody you loved and trusted. And anyway, I think that's probably enough.
- [48:50]
Interviewer
We've talked on many occasions over the years and you've had enormous highs in politics, but obviously this is a huge, huge blow and your marriage has come to an end. And in your time in politics, you also lost another big relationship with your former mentor, Alex Salmond. Has it been worth it to have your life in politics?
- [49:16]
Nicola Sturgeon
Yeah. Yeah. I've had a great career in politics. I've done things I'm really proud of. I've had massive ups, I've had downs. That's what you would expect in the nature of a senior political career. I don't regret it. You know, I am, and I know not everybody, because people who used to see me as this kind of strong politician on television might not immediately understand this. I am by nature, I'm quite an introverted person. I'm in nature, a very reflective person. I'm probably, and this can be hard to believe given how vehement some of my critics are these days, but I'm still just about my own biggest critic. So I agonize over things like, could have done anything differently. Is this all my fault? I read a piece or I scanned a piece, I can't remember where it was this morning. And I think it goes to the heart of something that does enrage me. And the piece was about how I'd had these men in my life who'd done, you know, things or being accused of bad things, and in Peter's case, did bad things. And it was talking about Peter and Alec, and it mentioned one, at least one other, and the tone of this piece. And it wasn't. It was explicit, it wasn't Just implicit was that I was the common denominator. And somehow the problem wasn't what they'd done, it was that my judge of character was bad. And I. I'm just going to say it. There is a deep misogyny in that, a deep embedded misogyny in that. And if the roles had been reversed, if the leader in question had been a man and it had been women in their lives who'd done bad things, I don't think those kind of commentary pieces would be written. And so your question was, do I regret my time in politics? No, I don't. And just like I'm not going to think of myself as a victim, just as I'm not going to apologise for somebody else's crimes, I'm not going to let other people's behaviour take away from the things I've done in my life that I am proud of.
- [51:25]
Interviewer
But on reflection, are there things you wish you'd done differently? You've just said you do reflect a lot.
- [51:29]
Nicola Sturgeon
Laura, we could sit here for another hour, that's not an encouragement, and talk about all the things outside what we're talking about today that I wish I'd done differently. Any point politician who's been in office as long as I was, if that wasn't the case, there would be something psychologically wrong with them. And, well, I won't go any further there. So, of course there are things I wish I'd done differently. But no matter in this particular situation, anything I'd done differently, I genuinely don't think it would have stopped somebody committing a crime and going to great lengths to cover his tracks on that crime.
- [52:07]
Interviewer
And are you now living your life differently?
- [52:10]
Nicola Sturgeon
Very. And that's probably all I'm going to tell you.
- [52:14]
Interviewer
Well, in what ways? Well, you've been very open before. In your book, you talk about living your life in a different way. You've been very open about mental health, you've been very open today about how much you've been suffering. And you've been open before, too, about your sexuality, that you. You wouldn't put a label on it. Have you found a new relationship?
- [52:32]
Nicola Sturgeon
Is that part of how you live life differently? I mean, tempting though it is to grab the headlines of this interview with a personal revelation of that nature. No, I'm not in a new relationship. I am. It's really hard. The last three years have been really difficult. The last week has been excruciatingly difficult. And yet, despite it all, I am managing to live a different phase of life. In a way that I am starting to find some peace and happiness. You know, it's been a bit blown apart in the last week, but I am happier. Or getting to the point where I feel happier. I'm getting to the point where I'm able to do the things I enjoy doing and just. But I'm still in a transition from a life in politics. It's only, what, a couple of months since I left Parliament? I'm still in a transition to a different way of life. Having all of this around me doesn't make that easier. But I'm still determined to get on with my life and to enjoy my life and to try to be happy in the life I'm leading.
- [53:46]
Interviewer
And just finally listening to you today, you've been very open about how hard this has been, and you've called it a trauma, but you also sound very defiant about your role in it all.
- [53:59]
Nicola Sturgeon
I. I have. I am being accused of guilt of somebody else's crimes, and that's a really hard thing. You know, it's hard enough to come to terms with the fact your husband, former husband, now committed crimes that you were living with somebody that you thought you knew, but it turned out you didn't know. That's really hard to come to terms with. But then on top of that, to be publicly accused or, you know, even just by innuendo and implication that somehow you were complicit in those cases, crimes. And I didn't sit here meaning to be defiant, but I do feel really strongly that that's not right, that I'm a politician of many years standing. I should be held to account for the things I did and decisions I took. And you've done some of that today. And, And I've tried my best to explain the reality around these things, but I guess I do feel a little bit defiant that I am not prepared to be held responsible, responsible for the things somebody else did. And I think that's important for me, and I can only speak for me, but I do think there's a bigger. We live in a society, a world where it remains true. And I know I'm a special case because I was the first minister and the party leader, but it still remains true that when a man does something wrong, there are some people whose first instinct will be to look for the woman to blame. And. And I'm not going to be part of that. And I've got a lot. I've got a long road ahead of me in coming to terms with this and trying to, you know, heal the wounds that my ex husband has inflicted on me repair the damage he's done. And I'm probably in a very early stage of that. But I'm also determined. I think the word I would use about myself more than defiant is determined. I'm determined that this doesn't wreck my life. I'm determined that it doesn't stop me going on to do the things I want to do, that it doesn't stop me trying to find a better happiness in the next phase of my life. So if there is a bit of, to use your word, defiance, defense, my word determination, then it's better than lying in a crumpled heap. Because there are times this week where it wouldn't have taken much for me to fall over into that crumpled heap. And I'm determined not to do it.
- [56:35]
Interviewer
Nicholas Sturgeon, thank you so much for giving us your time today.
- [56:38]
Nicola Sturgeon
Thank you.
- [56:41]
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Nicola Sturgeon
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Nicola Sturgeon
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Nicola Sturgeon
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Nicola Sturgeon
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