Nicola Sturgeon reveals her house 'looked like a murder scene' on day of arrest
In ITV's Nicola Sturgeon: The Interview, the former First Minister of Scotland spoke of her family home being searched by police in 2023. Sturgeon spoke about not having a clear memory of her then husband Peter Murrell being arrested, reports The Record.
The arrest came following a police investigation into the spending of more than £600,000 in donations for independence campaigning.
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Nicola Sturgeon and Murrell had been married since 2010. Sturgeon resigned as first minister and SNP leader in February 2023 and was arrested two months after her husband was first arrested. Former party treasurer Colin Beattie was also arrested the same year.
Both Beattie and Sturgeon were later exonerated before Murrell was re-arrested and charged with embezzlement in April 2024.
Speaking with ITV News presenter Julie Etchingham, she said: "I genuinely don't know whether the fact that I don't have a clear image of that in my head is because I didn't witness it or that I have kind of somehow blocked it out.
"It wasn't till I got to mum and dad's that I saw the pictures of my house looking like a murder scene effectively.
"I'm just working out that it's really hard to articulate how I felt that day.
"Obviously, the last two years of my life have been torrid. You know, finding myself at the centre of a police investigation under suspicion for a couple of years, all the while, knowing I had done nothing wrong.
"The whole, no smoke without fire is a really basic human instinct. We all have it. If somebody's accused of something that we might think, well, that's maybe not true, but there's always a little part of your brain saying, well, no smoke without fire.
"So I was just, yeah, just totally shaken to my core. It was really, really dark and really, really difficult.
"If you described it to me in advance, I would've said, I, I won't survive that."
Sturgeon previously described being arrested and questioned by the police following the arrest of her ex-husband and the Scottish National Party (SNP) treasurer as one of her toughest days.
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She described waking up with her stomach in knots prior to June 11, 2023 - the date she was arrested and questioned.
Sturgeon was told she would face no further action over the investigation on March 20, 2025.
Elsewhere in the interview, Sturgeon claimed trans rapist Isla Bryson has forfeited the right "to be the gender of their choice" because of their "heinous" crimes.
Bryson was jailed in February 2023 after being convicted of raping two women while living as a man named Adam Graham.
The rapist was sent to a women's jail after identifying as female - prompting a huge uproar from opposition parties and womens' rights campaigners. They were later moved to a men's wing at HMP Edinburgh.
Self-identification was at the heart of the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, which Sturgeon championed before it was blocked from becoming law by the UK Government in 2023.
The row was one of the last acts of Sturgeon's premiership before she announced her intention to resign as first minister.
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