Senior SNP members believe Nicola Sturgeon's arrest is imminent
But police are reportedly examining a fridge freezer
Detective Inspector John Rebus stood before the fridge freezer, his eyes scanning every inch. This was the first piece of evidence he had come across that piqued his interest. As he examined it standing there in all its whiteness and apparent innocence, Rebus couldn't help but think about the strange and twisted ways that people use domestic appliances...
The latest intelligence from Operation Branchform into SNP party finances is that police are “probing” a fridge freezer. “There is an extensive list of items that the police are interested in which will probably be surprising some people” said a police source quoted in the Sunday Mail, “It is mostly high value items - expensive pens, pots and pans, jewellery, but also a fridge freezer”.
No jokes please about this being an open and shut case. This is all very serious and we are all told we must not prejudice any future trial by speculating about evidence in a police investigation or on the guilt or otherwise of the individuals helping police with their inquiries. But come on. A fridge? We've already had motorhomes. What on earth was going on in the SNP that they were buying white goods, luxury pens and pots and pans? Were they opening a department store?
The paper also reports that police have been searching for sim cards and “burner phones”. These are the disposable mobiles famously used by drug dealers and other unsavoury sorts in crime dramas. They can't easily be tracked and the removable sim cards can store lots of valuable information - about what we do not know and cannot speculate. Is it contempt of court to suggest that this is all sounding a little ridiculous?
All we can safely say is that police have been investigating complaints about £660,000 in donations raised by the SNP after 2017 and supposedly ring fenced for an independence campaign that never happened. The outspoken former Scottish Resistance leader, Sean Clerkin, complained to the police in 2019 claiming that the SNP had not made clear the uses to which the cash had been put, there having been no independence referendum. The SNP insisted that the funds were recycled or “woven through” general party expenditure and, on the grounds that the SNP is a permanent independence campaign, the funds were put to a valid purpose.
We are not sure if the fridge freezer was a valid purpose, or that it was even purchased with ring fenced donations. The SNP's auditors' Johnston Carmichael, resigned six months ago so possibly no one knows. The former National Treasurer, Douglas Chapman, had resigned earlier in 2021 complaining that he wasn't getting the information necessary to conduct his “fiduciary duties”. No one had at that point mentioned jewellery, phones, campervans, let alone pots and pans.
The two year police investigation into the fundraising and accounts of the Scottish National Party has thrown up some bizarre images which will linger long in the public mind. Top SNP officials, including Nicola Sturgeon's husband, Peter Murrell, being arrested: that police forensics tent outside Nicola Sturgeon's Uddingston home; boxes of green files being removed from party HQ. Then there was that motorhome being seized from the driveway of Peter Murrell's mother’s home. Now a cornucopia of consumer goods is apparently helping police with their inquiries.
Senior party members are expecting Nicola Sturgeon herself to be arrested this week and taken in for questioning. The reason is that her name is one of three that appear on the now infamous SNP accounts for 2020/21, along with the chief executive, her husband Peter Murrell, and the National Treasurer, Colin Beattie. Those two have already been arrested and released without charge, so it stands to reason that the former First Minister might be next.
What would have happened, many are wondering, had this investigation taken place before rather than after Nicola Sturgeon resigned so abruptly on the 15th of February 2023? Would they have arrested the First Minister of Scotland? Would police have erected a forensic tent outside her official residence, Bute House, in Edinburgh's salubrious West End? Who knows. Unsurprisingly, there are those both in and out of the SNP putting two and two together and wondering if Nicola Sturgeon had prior warning of the turn that the investigations was about to take. There is no way of knowing.
Indeed, speculation is futile. All we know is that Operation Branchform is a live criminal investigation, and that Humza Yousaf has been robbed of any sort of honeymoon period as First Minister. And that the SNP’s rapid, unscheduled disassembly continues.
I'm sure it's inevitable that Ms Sturgeon will be interviewed just as the other two signatories to the accounts were. Why would she not be? When she is, I do hope Police Scotland have that video from last weekend present!
The trouble is that Yousaf seems to find it impossible not to talk about things he really shouldn't be discussing as he invariably trips himself up.
On the motor home, he knew nothing, nor did the NEC although he was then able to come out and tell the press that, yes, it did belong to the SNP and had been bought as a potential "battle bus". Why was he even discussing publicly a vehicle that had been seized by Police Scotland when that very body had warned people to be very careful about what they said during a live investigation? So, if he knew nothing to start with, who brought him up to speed on the motorhome? (The NEC knew nothing about it either, remember!)
Robin McAlpine wrote an article lately, well, quite a few actually, but one in particular lamented the fact that every move made by Yousaf so far is how NOT to behave at a time like this. Saying, "I can't speak about it because it's a live investigation." and then going on to speak about it really isn't the way to go. Who is advising him?
Today we've had Keith Brown insisting that Yousaf has already moved to make changes by "replacing" Beattie. He had no choice but to replace Beattie, that wasn't Yousaf's idea. Beattie had been arrested! And meanwhile Yousaf has left the rest of the NEC intact. The same NEC which has functioned in secrecy all this time and dragged the Party it manages into such utter disrepute that no one can even imagine what will happen next.
Apparently there were 19 separate complaints, not just Clerkin's, although his was the first, and some may have been threatened to withdraw their complaints, as indeed Clerkin was. Some money was also apparently refunded to complainers who emailed the SNP directly. It was after the accounts were released in 2019 that the secrecy and lack of transparency around the NEC started.