𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Murrell, who was SNP chief executive from 2001 to 2023, spent the money on items including a motorhome, cars, kitchen gadgets, expensive watches and pens. More mundane purchases included hand cream and toilet seats. Now, court documents show Murrell, 61, spent £55.98 on 108 Andrex toilet rolls on March 7, 2020, according to reports.

The purchases came as supermarkets faced shortages of some key items and 48 hours before Ms Sturgeon, in a press conference, told the public to “behave as rationally as possible” and avoid bulk buys, according to the Daily Mail.

In the following weeks, Murrell also reportedly bought 144 bottles of Evian still mineral water and four packs of liquid laundry detergent.

Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton told the Mail: “Peter Murrell’s loo roll splurge suggests that he had advance notice of Nicola Sturgeon’s warning against panic buying, but it’s also typical of the SNP’s “do as I say, not as I do” double standards.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie also told the paper: “The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Every new revelation shines a harsher light on the culture that developed under Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney’s leadership and raises fresh questions about who knew what and when.”

Ms Sturgeon said Murrell, whom she separated from in 2025, “lied to me and betrayed me”.

In an interview on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, she said: “Am I angry at him? Yes, I’m angry, but I’m also carrying a degree of hurt and I think a degree of trauma about – this whole episode resulted in my sitting in a police station under arrest.

“What he has done to me I think will take me a very, very long time to recover from.”

Reflecting on some of the items Murrell bought, Ms Sturgeon said that she was working round the clock most days in her role as First Minister and that she did not have much, if anything, to do with the administration of the household.

She said: “Just to explain how our finances worked, we had separate bank accounts, I never had any access to his bank account, he didn’t have any to mine. Every month I would pass him a sum of money to cover my share of the household expenses and leave him to it.”

Ms Sturgeon, who was Scotland’s first minister from 2014 to 2023, also said: “I absolutely didn’t know that he was committing crimes.”

Murrell was remanded in custody and is set to be sentenced this month.