Nicola Sturgeon & Peter Murrell: The rise and fall of the SNP's former power couple

He was the backroom organiser credited with helping transform the party into an election-winning machine. She was the politician who, for a while at least, appeared almost untouchable. Together, they were formidable.

But there were always those uncomfortable with the tight grip exerted by the pair over the party.

Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell married in Glasgow in 2010 after getting together in 2003. They had reportedly first met at an SNP youth weekend in 1988.

Both are private people, but Ms Sturgeon often spoke of his cooking skills in interviews. Mr Murrell was not one of those guys who would feel threatened by her public role, she said, adding: “He doesn't have that sort of ego, he's very self-assured."

When she become first minister in 2014, Alex Salmond said he advised the couple that Mr Murrell should step down as chief executive of the party, a role held since 2001.

“The point I made to them both was that you might get by when times are good, but when times were tough, it would become a source of great weakness,” Mr Salmond said years later.

"Nicola said she didn't think it was a problem. And Peter looked at me with a look of sort of hurt astonishment, resentment, more than anything else.”

In the end, Mr Murrell continued in the role until March 2023, when he resigned amid a row over membership numbers.

Just a couple of weeks later, the long-running police investigation into the SNP’s finances exploded into the headlines, with officers descending on the home shared by Mr Murrell and Ms Sturgeon on the outskirts of Glasgow.

It was an extraordinary development that gripped the nation. Few within the SNP will ever forget those images of a blue evidence tent outside their quiet suburban home.

In April last year, Mr Murrell was charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds from the SNP.

Ms Sturgeon was arrested and released without charge in June 2023. She has insisted she is innocent of any wrongdoing, and knows “nothing more” about the investigation than she did when arrested.

The couple’s decision to split is, of course, a personal matter. They are entitled to a private life.

“To all intents and purposes, we have been separated for some time now and feel it is time to bring others up to speed with where we are,” Ms Sturgeon wrote on Instagram.

But the announcement will inevitably draw attention back to the ongoing police investigation, which has yet to reach its conclusion.