Police: Peter Murrell abused position to bankroll lavish lifestyle he craved
Peter Murrell abused his privileged position to bankroll a lavish lifestyle “he craved but could not afford”, Police Scotland has said.
The former SNP chief executive has been remanded into custody at the High Court in Edinburgh after pleading guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 from the SNP.
He admitted the charges when he appeared at the court on Monday morning.
Media phrases eh? "Lavish lifestyle" is a popular one for stories where a wrong 'un takes money which isn't theirs and spends on what the media consider to be luxuries such as posh cars, exotic holidays, fancy tattoos and so on.
On the other hand, when a government spends many billions propping up a failing but politically important project such as HS2, we don't usually describe it as lavish politics.
Maybe that's because we need new words such as hyperlavish for government largesse. This would give us Ed Miliband, Net Zero and the hyperlavish funding which keeps it tottering along.
12 comments:
Am I surprised? No. And perhaps that is a greater concern.
DJ - I agree, it is a greater concern. Nobody appears to be surprised.
If a camping car (as they are called in France) suddenly appeared on my driveway, I am sure that my late wife would have been asking questions. It would appear that Mrs. Murrell 'knew nothing' about her husban's purchases, at least that is what she claims.
DAD - yes, a First Minister who didn't notice illicit spending doesn't sound plausible - or maybe it does considering her record.
I await developments because: "Under Scots law, a spouse or civil partner is both a competent (legally capable) and compellable (can be forced by court order) witness in criminal proceedings, meaning they can be required to testify against their husband, wife, or civil partner."
You can await whatever you like. The question surely is what he was offered to take the sole fall and implicate no-one else.
Nothing here, acted alone, no-one knew, bad boy, move on.
Is this a wee bit lavish too?
https://archive.ph/3DwBl
That's almost as exciting as the Reform man wanting to get into Carol Vorderman.
£400,310.65 yes it's a big number, but 'lavish', on that?
dearieme - it could be interesting if there are further developments, but maybe he will be quietly buried in clink.
Chris - yes, he must be a major source of information about games played by the SNP. With all the global political turmoil and the World Cup starting next month, he'll be forgotten if he stays quiet.
dearieme - blimey, what a weasel the man is.
James - he should have known that some targets aren't worth it.
djc - that's what I thought, a surprisingly small amount to set against the risk of prison. Hardly lavish lifestyle territory.
Precisely. Its noticeable that the actual original complaint has been studiously ignored. Namely that the SNP took money from donors on the undertaking it would be 'ringfenced' for an independence campaign, but then spent it on other things, because they no longer had that amount of cash in the bank. I'm sure that when the police found out that Murrell had been dipping his hands into the till they were delighted (as were all the other senior SNP and government officials) because it meant they could pivot the enquiry from investigating the administration and governance of the Scottish governing party (which basically meant investigating the entire Scottish government) to investigating a single person with sticky fingers.
The SNP accounts showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the SNP had defrauded those independence donors, yet no one has been charged with that fraud. Sturgeon is on record as declaring the donated money was still in SNP coffers, yet it wasn't, and isn't today, and she still walks free.
There were two crimes - the defrauded SNP donors, and Murrell using the SNP as his own personal piggy bank. Sturgeon may or may not have known about the latter, as one of the signatories to the SNP accounts she most definitely knew the ringfenced donations no longer existed, the published accounts showed it, as was pointed out by Stuart Campbell (the Wings Over Scotland blogger who started the whole thing off).
Scotland is now a banana republic where the ruling clique can do exactly as they please and the rule of law means nothing.
Sobers - I'm sure you are right, even from my casual viewpoint it is clear that Murrell is the scapegoat for something much bigger. The money he admits to taking is a footling amount in comparison, but the confession has come at a convenient time with lots of other issues to allow this case to to be presented as closure. Even some SNP voters must wonder though.
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