Who is Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell? Meet the previous SNP chief charged with embezzlement throughout celebration funds probe – as Scottish ex-first minister proclaims cut up
Peter Murrell is best known for being the husband of former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon.
Ms Sturgeon, 54, and Mr Murrell, 60, ruled at the top of the SNP and Scottish politics for many years before she stood down as first minister and party leader in March 2023.
Her shock resignation came weeks before both she and her husband were arrested as part of Police Scotland’s Operation Branchform probe into the SNP’s finances.
But today the ex-first minister of Scotland revealed she and Mr Murrell, who married in 2010, had been ‘separated for some time now’ and she was now making the news public ‘with a heavy heart’.
They first met in 1988 when she was 18 and he was 24, at an SNP youth event .
They officially became a couple in 2003 living together in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire.
And for years Mr Murrell was one half of the husband and wife team that took the SNP to success in election after election.
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The couple, pictured in 2022, ruled at the top of the SNP and Scottish politics for many years before Ms Sturgeon stood down as first minister and party leader in March 2023
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell began their relationship in 2003 and were married at a civil ceremony in Glasgow’s west end in 2010
On her accession to the leadership in 2014, Ms Sturgeon was forced to deny that the wife-and-husband team would wield an unhealthy amount of power.
But he served as chief executive of the party for more than two decades, holding the post from 1999 until he stepped down in 2023.
The couple met through their work with the SNP in the late 1980s.
Prior to taking on the chief executive’s job in 1999 – the year of the first ever Holyrood elections – Murrell had worked in the constituency office of Alex Salmond, the then leader of the SNP.
The former top official was regarded by many as having played a key role in transforming the party’s fortunes, helping to modernise SNP operations.
The party has become the dominant force in Scottish politics, seizing power at Holyrood in 2007 and winning every election since then.
While membership has fallen from the peak of about 125,000 achieved in 2018, it remains the largest political party north of the border.
However after over eight years in the top job, Ms Sturgeon, who was at the time Scotland’s longest serving first minister, announced in February 2023 she was stepping down from the post and as SNP leader.
Murrell then quit as party chief executive the following month during the contest to replace her.
Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is ending her marriage to former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell. Pictured: The couple at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, in 2022
The former Scottish first minister revealed the news via a post on her Instagram account
The subject of finances within the SNP has long been a subject of controversy, and came into the spotlight again following the arrest of Mr Murrell on April, 5 2023.
Mr Murrell gave an interest-free loan of £107,620 to the party to ‘assist with cashflow’ on June 20, 2021, Electoral Commission documents show.
A day earlier, the SNP’s national executive committee (NEC) held a meeting, after which treasurer Colin Beattie issued a statement reassuring members that a £600,000 ring-fenced fund would be spent on campaigning for independence.
An investigation was launched in July 2021 after complaints were received. Detectives are looking at claims that cash earmarked for campaigning for a second independence referendum had been diverted.
Prior to his arrest, eyebrows had been raised within the SNP about the salary of Mr Murrell.
His salary was published by the party for the first time in nearly a decade in 2021, revealing that he took home £79,750.
He was also paid £109,492 in 2011, the year the SNP earned a majority in the Scottish Parliament.
Born in Edinburgh, Mr Murrell grew up in one of the capital’s leafy suburbs in Corstorphine. He attended Craigmount High in the west of the city, before studying at Glasgow University in the mid 1980s.
Before entering politics, Murrell was a communications officer for the Church of Scotland for four years.
In 2019, Ms Sturgeon praised her husband’s ability to ‘de-stress’ her as she made a risqué joke on TV.
Asked on ITV’s Loose Women how she liked to unwind, the then-first minister replied: ‘Well… it’s a daytime show. I like reading books. That’s a safe answer in this context.
‘Peter, yeah, he can de-stress me from time to time.’
In April 2023, shortly after she stood down as first minister, Ms Sturgeon joked that social media speculation about her private life made it appear much more exciting than it was.
She told the BBC: ‘I read accounts of my private life on social media and I think, you know it is so much more glamourous sounding and so much more exciting.
‘I have got houses everywhere if you believe social media.’
She added: ‘The fact that people still don’t think they know everything about me, well to some extent, I take that as a bit of an achievement, because I have obviously managed to protect a little bit of a private persona and that is a good thing.
Later that year, Ms Sturgeon strongly denied her marriage was on the rocks amid the strain of the police investigation.
‘We’re still married and we will be married for a long time to come,’ she told TV presenter and former Tory MP Gyles Brandreth on a podcast.
She also spoke of her ongoing sense of loss after the miscarriage she suffered while serving as deputy first minister.
‘I had a miscarriage in 2010,’ she said. ‘I didn’t speak about it at the time but a few years later I spoke about the miscarriage.
‘Because for a woman in politics who doesn’t have children, you get asked that question a lot.’
She added: ‘There have been times where I’ve not wanted kids and other times I thought, yeah, it might be nice.
‘Then there was the period where we decided we did and it didn’t happen. Is it a regret? I wish I hadn’t had the miscarriage.
‘I’ve always thought it was a girl. I’ve no idea why but I’ve always described the child I lost as ‘she’. She would be in her early teens now, probably causing me all sorts of grief.’
Ms Sturgeon, pictured with Mr Murrell in 2017, previously denied her marriage was on the rocks amid the strain of the police investigation into the SNP’s finances
In April 2023, police spent two days scouring the Glasgow home of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell
Police were seen scouring Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell’s garden during their two-day search of the property
In April 2023, after Mr Murrell was charged, Ms Sturgeon admitted the situation was ‘incredibly difficult’.
Speaking to media outside the couple’s home in Glasgow, she said: ‘It’s incredibly difficult, but that’s not the main issue. I can’t say anymore, I’m not going to say any more.’
In an interview with the Financial Times, Ms Sturgeon acknowledged that being married to the SNP’s chief executive meant politics had been ‘all-consuming for a long, long time’.
Mr Murrell was charged in connection with the embezzlement of SNP funds in April last year after being arrested for a second time.
Ms Sturgeon and former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie were previously released without charge after being interviewed by police.
