SNP Funds Misappropriated for Luxury Purchases

1. Cars

Murrell bought 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, pocketing the proceeds. There was also a £124,550 Niesmann+Bischoff motorhome, which he parked on his mother’s driveway, and for which he created fake invoices.

He used a further £16,489 of SNP money to part-fund the purchase of a £32,989 Volkswagen Golf.

2. Luxury items

Murrell also spent on high-end pens and watches: £9,350 on two Bremont watches, £4,225 on a Starwalker World Time fountain pen, £1,407 on two Montblanc Boheme Noir fountain pens and £700 on a boldly striped Great Characters The Beatles Special Edition Fountain Pen in 14-karat gold.

In November 2020, the indictment notes that he spent £650.75 at Fortnum & Mason, buying two of its Feasting Advent calendars for £400 and a Musical Santa’s Sleigh Advent calendar at £165. Earlier in 2020, £2,618.16 went on two Lalique Feuilles pepper & salt grinders. There was a silver wine coaster, too, for £3,500 – and a £2,495 jewellery box.

3. Games and technology

He appears to have unwound with gaming and tech, buying iPads and Kindles, and a PlayStation 3 console for £247, four Nintendo 3DS handheld consoles and copies of PS4 games including £63.49 on Fifa 14 and £42.99 on Grand Theft Auto.

As well as other games – including two iterations of the Fifa franchise, Battlefield 4, The Sims 3 Pets and Pac-Man – he bought an Xbox One console for £297.14 and a Nintendo Switch.

4. Home items

Murrell had a penchant for posh coffee. He spent £442.20 on coffee mugs from Le Creuset, £1,299 on a Miele CM6300 Coffee machine and a further £3,232 on a Jura Giga 5 Cromo coffee machine. But he bought instant coffee too: 2kg of Nescafé Gold Blend for £81.16 in 2018.

On 8 March 2024, he spent £49.80 on a Le Creuset wine pourer, a Le Creuset champagne and sparkling wine bottle opener and a three-in-one corkscrew.

The garden at the house in Uddingston, Glasgow, he shared with Nicola Sturgeon was lavished with a Husqvarna robotic lawnmower, costing £3,070, including installation.

5. Culture

Scandi-noir crime thrillers, which Sturgeon often cited among her preferred pleasures, also featured. He paid £60 for the DVD for the Killing: Seasons 1 to 3, using money stolen from the SNP, and £75 on Borgen: The Complete Seasons One and Two DVD. He also bought a box set of Sherlock Holmes.

He bought books using the SNP’s money as well, including the Folio Society’s edition of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, for which he paid £160.