SNP Peter Murrell’s 10 most outrageous purchases – £4k fountain pen to a luxury Jaguar
STEPH SPYRO – ANALYSIS: Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell faces time behind bars for embezzling over £400,000 from the party.
Peter Murrell arriving at court (Image: Getty)
Peter Murrell arrived at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday inside a prison van. The vehicle was a far cry from the £124,000 motorhome which helped get him into this embezzlement mess. It marked a total fall from grace for the man who had once been half of Scotland’s most influential power couple.
The former Scottish National Party (SNP) supremo, and Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband, oversaw the party’s rocketing rise in popularity and a large influx of new members around the 2014 independence referendum. But it was the fees and donations paid by those very members, along with other donors and legacies, that made up the bulk of the £400,000 Murrell last month admitted embezzling over a 12-year period.
10 of the most outrageous things Peter Murrell bought with SNP money
Niesmann Bischoff motorhome (Image: -)
- A £124,550 Niesmann+Bischoff motorhome
- A silver wine coaster worth £3,500
- Two Bremont watches for £9,350
- A Starwalker World Time fountain pen for £4,225
- Two Lalique Feuilles pepper & salt grinders for £2,618.16
- A luxury SUV – a Jaguar iPace – for £81,000, subsided with £57,500 stolen from the SNP money, which he later sold for £47,378 and pocketed the proceeds
- A Volkswagen Golf (£32,989, for which he used £16,489 of SNP money).
- A Husqvarna robotic lawnmower costing £3,070
- A Celestron 10169 NexStar 8SE computerised Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope for £1,199
- Eight umbrellas totalling £1,990.50
Police say the odometer showed that the motorhome only ever made a four-mile journey from the car dealership to Murrell’s mother’s driveway.
Shortly after buying the campervan, Murrell bought guides for “inspirational journeys” around Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland in the motorhome.
It never went anywhere but it will help drive Murrell to prison where he will be devoid of the luxuries he came to enjoy.
He splurged nearly £9,000 on two watches, £3,000 on a robot mower and Lalique salt and pepper grinders priced at £2,61.
There is a long road ahead for Murrell who pleaded guilty last week to embezzling £400,310.65 from the SNP between August 2010 and October 2022.
He went to extreme lengths to cover his tracks by using his access to the SNP’s accounting software as chief executive to falsify records and fool auditors.
After years in the driving seat of the SNP, Murrell now finds himself firmly parked at the mercy of the justice system.
Although authorities weren’t deceived, the same can’t be said for his then wife Nicola Sturgeon who insisted she was unaware of his criminal conduct.
This is despite jewellery and luxury items being gifted to her by Murrell.
The wheels finally came off now and there’s no reversing out of this one.
