Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell to end marriage

Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and ex-SNP chief executive Peter Murrell have “decided to end” their marriage.

In a social media post, Sturgeon said the pair had been separated for some time.

Murrell was charged with embezzling SNP funds in April as part of a police investigation into the party’s finances.

Sturgeon was arrested and released without charge in June 2023. She insists she has done nothing wrong.

The former first minister said the decision to end the marriage had been made “with a heavy heart”.

She posted on Instagram: “To all intents and purposes we have been separated for some time now and feel it is time to bring others up to speed with where we are.

“It goes without saying that we still care deeply for each other, and always will.”

Sturgeon said the pair would not comment further.

Police Scotland has spent more than two years looking into what happened to £660,000 of donations given to the SNP by independence activists.

Sturgeon and Murrell’s Glasgow home was searched by officers in April 2023.

Police also searched the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh and confiscated a luxury motorhome parked in the driveway of Murrell’s mother in Fife.

In September last year it emerged that officers had sent prosecutors details of what they had uncovered in an “advice and guidance report” and were seeking formal advice on what they should do next.

The update was understood to be about Sturgeon and ex-SNP treasurer Colin Beattie, who have both remained under investigation after being arrested and released without charge in 2023.

At the time, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said the police report was under consideration.

Police Scotland has said it is awaiting direction from COPFS “on what further action should be taken”.

They were Scotland’s political power couple for almost a decade.

While Nicola Sturgeon ran the Scottish government, her husband Peter Murrell ran the party of which she was leader – the SNP.

Ms Sturgeon’s predecessor, Alex Salmond, once told me he privately warned the couple in 2014 against concentrating so much power in one household.

In the years since then others in the SNP have publicly questioned the set up.

In recent days, the former first minister was quoted in the Financial Times, apparently describing her work/life arrangements as having been “all consuming for a long, long time”.

There’s been renewed scrutiny of any crossover between the political and personal lives of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell since the police began investigating the SNP’s finances.

Whatever the outcome of that ongoing case, it is clear that the power couple at the centre of it are now living separate lives.