Sturgeon talks about Shetland pendant in new interview about embezzled SNP funds
NICOLA Sturgeon has spoken in a new interview about a pendant bought for her in Shetland by ex-SNP chief executive Peter Murrell using embezzled funds from the party.
The matter was raised in a new BBC interview with the former first minister, with the item highlighted as Sturgeon had previously been pictured wearing it in public.
The gold pendant from Shetland Jewellery was listed in court documents as one of many purchases Murrell – Sturgeon’s former husband – had made using embezzled SNP funds.
It was bought in the summer of 2019, and court documents said £425 of embezzled funds was used for its purchase.
Murrell, 61, pleaded guilty on 25 May to embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP between August 2010 and October 2022.
Speaking about the pendant, Sturgeon said she had been campaigning a lot in Shetland in what was a by-election for the constituency at the time after the resignation of MSP Tavish Scott.
“We went to visit, as part of the campaign, we went to visit this amazing business, the Shetland jewellers, and I was being shown around the shop and I stopped at this pendant,” she said.
“I mean, you’ve seen pictures of it, it’s beautiful.
“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.”
In the interview Sturgeon became emotional, before continuing: “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…to then find out that these were gifts given to me that he’d 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 am just not sure I will ever properly come to terms with that.”
Elsewhere in the interview the former first minister said that “I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed and I’m not going to apologise for somebody else’s crimes”.
After pleading guilty to embezzlement, Murrell was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing next month.
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