Motorhome bought by Murrell with stolen SNP money only did four miles

The luxury motorhome that Peter Murrell bought using money stolen from the Scottish National party was driven for only four miles, sitting unused for more than two years.

Murrell, then the SNP’s chief executive, drove the £124,550 Niesmann+Bischoff vehicle from the dealers at Halbeath in Fife in January 2021 to his mother’s home in Dunfermline – a cost of £31,138 a mile.

The high court in Edinburgh heard on Tuesday that Murrell then lied about what it was in the party’s records, describing it as a van in a faked invoice, and proceeded to stock it up with hundreds of pounds worth of luxury goods.

The police found Le Creuset and Joseph Joseph kitchenware, an Alessi teapot and toiletries from Molton Brown. Murrell also embezzled SNP funds, chiefly from party donations, membership fees and bequests, to buy motoring guides for “inspirational journeys” around Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.

In a short statement detailing how Murrell lied and falsified paperwork in order to steal a total of £400,310.65 from the SNP, Alan Campbell KC, for the prosecution, said the vehicle stayed there until it was seized by police in April 2023.

Murrell, the estranged husband of the former first minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, sat impassively in the dock wearing a dark blue suit and black tie as Campbell spoke, before being led out in handcuffs to return to the remand wing of Edinburgh prison.

Murrell pleaded guilty last week to embezzling the money over a 12-year period. For many, the motorhome has become symbolic of Murrell’s greed but raised fresh questions about how much Sturgeon knew.

In a highly charged 55-minute BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Sturgeon denied she had ever noticed the vehicle when she visited her mother-in-law’s home with Murrell.

She said it was parked beside the house, next to a neighbouring property, and implied it was never mentioned by either Murrell or his mother or father.

The motorhome was “between the house and the next-door neighbour’s house. I genuinely have no conscious memory of seeing that motorhome. If I saw it, I would probably have assumed it was the neighbour’s,” Sturgeon said.