Former Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she is having “probably the worst week” of her life after her estranged husband pleaded guilty to embezzlement.
The former SNP leader was speaking during her first public appearance after the party’s former chief executive Peter Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from the organisation between 2010 and 2022.
Mr Murrell has been remanded in custody, having reportedly spent the funds on a range of luxury items, including a motorhome, cars, expensive watches and a telescope.
At Listowel Writers’ Week in Co Kerry, the former Scottish first minister said that she was "not OK" and felt "deceived", "misled", and "betrayed" by her ex-husband.
Ms Sturgeon said: “This has been probably the worst week of my life and you know the last few years have had some tough ones for me, but this one, I think, surpasses all of them.
“You’re coming to terms with the fact that you spent many years - I spent many years - married to somebody that, as it turns out, I obviously didn’t know at all.
“It’s a really painful truth to process, and I think I’m only in the very early stages of processing it. And then to be in a position of such public turmoil myself makes that even harder.”.
She stressed that she was “completely exonerated” herself, following a “lengthy” and “very forensic” police investigation, and that she “fully co-operated” with Police Scotland after her own arrest in connection to the investigation.
However, she recognised that many people will continue to point “the finger of suspicion” at her for somebody else’s crimes.
Ms Sturgeon said that she understood that people would be asking “how could she not have known?”.
She added: “I think everybody assumes that all of this stuff that it turns out now my former husband was buying, I knew about it, and I just didn’t question who paid for it.
“As recently as Monday, I was reading about things in the newspapers for the first time that I’ve never seen, I didn’t know about it.
“It wasn’t just that I didn’t question where it came from. I’ve never seen it.”
Ms Sturgeon said she was still coming to terms with recent events, but that she was a “strong, resilient person” and “will be okay”.
She said: “I have been deceived, I’ve been misled, I’ve been lied to, and I’ve been betrayed - and I will not be the first, I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last woman that’s being betrayed by her husband.”
Ms Sturgeon joked to the audience: “I probably need to sit with a therapist – it’s a long-winded way of saying I’m not okay, I will be okay.”
The former Scotland first minister was speaking at an event in Ireland to promote her memoir, Frankly.
She declined to answer questions from reporters at the event, after being approached during the subsequent book signing.
She said: “I’m sorry, I’m not doing interviews.”
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