The home of Nicola Sturgeon, the former First Minister of Scotland, could be sold to pay back the £400,000 her estranged husband embezzled from the SNP. The situation has sparked calls for an independent inquiry into how Murrell was able to steal SNP funds.
Nicola Sturgeon , the former First Minister of Scotland, could lose her home in Uddingston, Glasgow, to pay back the £400,000 her estranged husband embezzled from the SNP .
The suburban home, which is shared by Sturgeon and Peter Murrell, could be sold off under the proceeds of crime legislation to pay back lost funds, according to a legal expert. The home, which was bought by the couple for £228,000 in 2005, could fetch around £330,000 if sold, given the current market prices.
Sturgeon is entitled to her share of the sale after the police investigation into her was dropped, but Murrell's stake could be used to reimburse the party he ran for two decades. Murrell, the disgraced former Chief Executive of the SNP, pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from the party over 12 years in court on May 25. A verbal motion for confiscation was then put in place to recover assets acquired through criminal activity.
Weeks after Sturgeon quit as first minister in March 2023, detectives raided the property and prosecutors issued a legal ban against selling the home. The home is not Sturgeon's only place of residence, as she has also stayed at flats in Edinburgh and London in the last year.
The embezzlement of funds by Murrell has sparked calls for an independent inquiry into how he was able to steal SNP funds, with opponents in Scotland pointing out that more than £2million of taxpayers' money went towards the police inquiry. There are also calls from Westminster for the Scottish affairs committee to open an investigation if Holyrood does not.
The Scottish Greens have opposed the move, and it is unlikely that the SNP would vote in favour of a Holyrood inquiry. The situation has been further complicated by the fact that Murrell gave the party a £107,620 loan in June 2021, of which £60,000 is still outstanding. The loan was not declared to the Electoral Commission, despite the fact that Murrell paid for a £124,550 motorhome with party funds and stored it at his mother's property six months later.
The motorhome was purchased with party funds, and other purchases made with SNP money will be reclaimed to raise funds. However, the value of these purchases will not be the same as when they were bought, according to Yvonne Evans, a senior law lecturer at Dundee University.
The lecturer said that selling the house was 'the most obvious way to make up shortfall on Murrell's part', and that if the house is under shared ownership, Sturgeon would keep her share, but Murrell's would go towards repaying the embezzled party funds under a confiscation order. The situation has been further complicated by the fact that former SNP donors could bring a civil case to get their money back after Scotland's First Minister, John Swinney, said there would be no refunds.
However, if embezzled funds return to the party through the proceeds of crime legislation, Evans said a case made by donors to retrieve funds would be unlikely to succeed.
'If the money is returned to SNP, there will be no ultimate financial loss once it has been repaid,' she said. 'It seems likely that the SNP will be reimbursed the full £400,000 by Murrell.
Nicola Sturgeon Peter Murrell SNP Embezzlement Proceeds Of Crime Legislation Independent Inquiry Holyrood Westminster
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