QUIZZED UNDER OATH

Heat on Sturgeon & Swinney over how former chief executive stole funds under their noses » Questions persist over length of Operation Branchform and why hearing was after election

- BY PAUL HUTCHEON and CHRIS McCALL

NICOLA Sturgeon will be quizzed under oath on the Peter Murrell embezzlement scandal if a plan for a Holyrood inquiry is agreed.

Scottish Labour are pushing for public hearings on how the former SNP chief executive got away with stealing from his party for 12 years.

Party deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “A parliamentary inquiry will get to the truth and help to restore trust in politics”

Murrell, the estranged husband of the former first minister, admitted embezzling over £400,000 of SNP funds to bankroll a lavish lifestyle.

Part of the former SNP chief executive's haul included two cars, a camper van, designer watches and fancy pens.

His crimes happened from 2010-2022, with most occurring when Sturgeon was first minister.

The ex-power couple are now in the process of getting divorced.

With Murrell pleading guilty, no trial will take place and there is no opportunity for witnesses to be questioned.

Baillie believes a standalone Holyrood inquiry should be launched to get to the bottom of a scandal that saw Murrell spend ringfenced indyref2 donations on himself.

She told the Record: “John Swinney wants to gloss over this scandal with a ‘nothing to see here’ attitude.

“However, there remain serious questions for the SNP and the First Minister to answer, such as why did no-one ask about what happened to the supposedly ringfenced funds? If those funds were a key part of the SNP’s drive for another independence campaign, then why did no-one in the party's HQ think to check about what was happening with it?