Nicola Sturgeon speaks of 'probably the worst week of my life'

Speaking at Listowel Writers’ Week in Co Kerry, Ireland, the former first minister said she had been deceived and lied to, and that she only found out about some of Murrell’s spending this week.

She insisted she had been “completely exonerated” and “totally cleared” after a “lengthy” and “very forensic” police investigation.

Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was remanded into custody at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from party funds over a 12-year period.

Police said the 61-year-old abused his privileged position to “bankroll the lavish lifestyle he craved but could not afford”. He used the embezzled cash to buy a vast array of items, from a motorhome to luxury goods to video games.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon's lawyer hits out at 'armchair detectives' over Peter Murrell case

Speaking publicly for the first time since Murrell’s guilty plea, Ms Sturgeon said: “This has been probably the worst week of my life and you know the last few years have had some tough weeks for me, but this one, I think, surpasses all of them.

“You’re coming to terms with the fact that you spent many years – I spent many years – married to somebody that, as it turns out, I obviously didn’t know at all.

“It’s a really painful truth to process, and I think I’m only in the very early stages of processing it. And then to be in a position of such public turmoil myself makes that even harder.”

Ms Sturgeon acknowledged and said she understood that people would be asking “how could she not have known?”

She added: “And I think underlying that question, there is a big misassumption, which is that I knew anything about it, or that I knew all about it.

“You know, I think everybody assumes that all of this stuff that it turns out now my former husband was buying, I knew about it, and I just didn’t question who paid for it.

“As recently as Monday, I was reading about things in the newspapers for the first time that I’ve never seen, I didn’t know about. It wasn’t just that I didn’t question where it came from. I’ve never seen it.”

The former first minister said she did not question how her former husband was able to purchase some items as they were both on “high salaries”.

She said: “We were two people on high salaries, no kids. I was doing a job – and this is another factor – I was doing a job that had me working around the clock, away from home a lot of the time.”

Ms Sturgeon added: “I have been deceived, I’ve been misled, I’ve been lied to, and I’ve been betrayed – and I will not be the first, I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last woman that’s being betrayed by her husband. The circumstances might be unusual and difficult.”

She joked to the audience: “I probably need to sit with a therapist right now – it’s a long-winded way of saying I’m not okay, I will be okay. I’m a strong, resilient person. I’ve had to be over the last few years.”

Elsewhere, she insisted she “fully co-operated” with Police Scotland after she was arrested and released without charge in 2023.

Asked about reports she had given “no comment” interviews to police, Ms Sturgeon said: “I did answer Police Scotland’s questions. I wrote… I followed the advice of my lawyer in a very stressful situation. I think most people would follow the advice of their lawyer.

“But after my interview, and this probably wasn’t reported in the press because it maybe didn’t suit the narrative of the report, I sent a fully detailed written response to the questions that the police had put to me, and never heard any more from them for two years until they told me I was cleared.

“So, fully co-operated with the police.”

Ms Sturgeon said she is a “great believer in taking responsibility for your own actions and your own mistakes”, but added there are people in society who “look for a woman to blame” when a man “does something wrong”.

“I’m obviously feeling a bit raw about this subject matter right now, but this is not the first time I’ve experienced this kind of thing,” she said.

“And it seems to me – and I bet there’s women in here, there’ll be women all over the country, the world, who will recognise what I’m saying – we still live in a society where when a man does something wrong, there are some people who will, the first thing they will do is look for the woman to blame.”

She added: “I am pretty sure that there have been days this week where my picture has featured in the front pages of Scottish newspapers more than my ex-husband has, and that can’t be right.

“I am responsible for my actions. I’m not responsible for the actions of my ex-husband.”

Ms Sturgeon declined to answer questions from reporters after the event, in which she was talking to author Andrew O'Hagan about her memoir Frankly.

Approached by reporters during the subsequent book signing, she said: “I’m sorry, I’m not doing interviews.”

Her comments came after John Swinney was accused of “trying to shut down scrutiny” as he again rejected calls for a Holyrood inquiry to be established into Murrell’s crimes.

The issue was raised at the first First Minister’s Questions since May’s Holyrood election, with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar alleging Mr Swinney – who appointed Murrell in his first stint as SNP leader – had “helped build” a culture in the party that enabled the crime.

Mr Swinney dismissed that as “victim blaming”, adding that Mr Sarwar should be “ashamed of himself”.

But the Scottish Labour leader insisted a parliamentary inquiry was now needed because “secrecy and cover-up go far beyond one individual or one case”.

Mr Swinney told him he did not support a parliamentary inquiry, telling MSPs: “We have just had a police investigation which has gone on for five years and that police investigation has identified criminality as the source of this particular issue, and that is now being remedied.

“So, I don’t think there is anything a parliamentary inquiry can add to a five-year forensic police investigation that has resulted in the successful prosecution of an individual and his guilty plea.”

Speaking on The Steamie, The Scotsman’s politics podcast, ex-SNP MP Joanna Cherry accused Mr Swinney of “treating people like they are idiots”.

Ms Cherry was among those who resigned from the party’s national executive committee in 2021 amid concerns about financial transparency.

She said there are now questions about how Murrell’s crimes were allowed to happen and why concerns were shut down.

"It's insulting to people's intelligence for the First Minister to pretend that he doesn't understand the difference between the issue of Peter Murrell’s criminality and the internal governance of the party,” she said.

"This is one of the reasons why I'm no longer a member of the SNP. It's that sort of level of dishonesty and treating people like they're idiots. We're not idiots.”