{"id":74722,"date":"2026-07-02T04:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T04:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/74722\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T04:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T04:23:23","slug":"prosecutors-deny-sturgeon-was-spared-embarrassment-after-womens-items-deleted-from-murrell-indictment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/74722\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors deny Sturgeon was spared ’embarrassment’ after women’s items deleted from Murrell indictment"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: One of the first complainers in the Branchform case said it “beggars belief” the items were not removed to spare the former SNP leader’s blushes.\"dailyrecord\"<\/p>\n

15:00, 01 Jul 2026Updated 15:05, 01 Jul 2026<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon were the two most powerful people in the SNP for almost a decade(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have denied removing items from the indictment against Peter Murrell<\/a> to spare Nicola Sturgeon from “embarrassment”.<\/p>\n

A number of purchases<\/a> made by the former SNP chief executive – including knickers, make-up, hairspray and female fitness gear – were, as part of a plea deal, removed from a list of items originally investigated by Operation Branchform detectives.<\/p>\n

Murrell, Sturgeon’s estranged husband, agreed to plead guilty to the amended indictment, which saw almost \u00a360,000 of items taken off the charge sheet.<\/p>\n

The removed items included \u00a32,700 on women\u2019s vanity products, including \u00a3886 worth of Studio Fix foundation makeup, 16 over-mirror lights totalling \u00a3582, two motion-sensor makeup mirrors totalling \u00a3480, a \u00a3300 Dyson hairdryer, nine makeup organisers totalling \u00a3116, and \u00a3175 on Nike tracksuits.<\/p>\n

A home shared by Murrell and Sturgeon was searched by cops over two days in April 2023. The former first minister was questioned by detectives in June that year but was later told she would face no further action.<\/p>\n

Sean Clerkin, whose complaint to Police Scotland in 2021 sparked the Branchform investigation<\/a>, wrote to the Crown Office after Murrell’s guilty plea in May to ask prosecutors to explain why so many purchases were removed from the charge sheet.<\/p>\n

In an email seen by the Record, he asked: “Is it the case that the \u00a359,000 worth of goods were removed from the charge sheet to spare Nicola Sturgeon any embarrassment? Is it the case that other embarrassing items were deleted from the charges and what were they?”<\/p>\n

Clerkin’s email concluded: “I believe that there needs to complete transparency and accountability here as the court of public opinion is demanding answers to the above questions and they need to be answered now.”<\/p>\n

In a response to the activist this week, a spokesperson for the Crown Office said: “On March 3, 2026, Peter Murrell instructed his legal representatives to explore resolution of his case by way of a guilty plea.<\/p>\n

“Discussions continued over the following weeks because of the length of the schedules relating to the embezzlement and the detail of the plea ultimately agreed. On May 21, the accused confirmed to the Crown that he would plead guilty.<\/p>\n

“The Crown considered the plea offered and accepted that it secured a conviction for serious criminal conduct and provided a proper basis for sentencing without the need for a lengthy trial at great public expense. On May 25, amendments were made to the schedule of purchases, and the charge remained one of embezzlement.<\/p>\n

“Your suggestion that items were deleted to save any person embarrassment is entirely wrong and played no part of the Crown\u2019s thinking. Prosecutorial decisions are taken entirely independently.”<\/p>\n

Clerkin told the Record: “The response by the Crown Office on the plea agreement reached with the common thief Peter Murrell is very disappointing.<\/p>\n

“To state, as they do, that that the near \u00a359,000 of mostly women\u2019s items that were dropped from the embezzlement charges was not done to spare Nicola Sturgeon embarrassment beggars belief.”<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/p>\n

Sean Clerkin(Image: DAILY RECORD)<\/p>\n

Murrell was initially due to enter a plea on February 20 but the hearing was delayed until after the Holyrood election on May 7. In early March, his lawyers began negotiations with prosecutors on a plea deal with more than 700 items worth \u00a358,735 removed from the indictment.<\/p>\n

He was last month jailed for five years and five months after admitting to embezzling more than \u00a3400,000 from the SNP over a 12-year period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: One of the first complainers in the Branchform case said it “beggars belief” the items were not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,143,7970,25258,290,3497,3934,5,6],"class_list":["post-74722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-courts","tag-justice","tag-nicola-sturgeon","tag-peter-murrell","tag-premium","tag-scottish-national-party","tag-snp","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116848479644300054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}