Nicola Sturgeon: 'Alex Salmond confessed to one of the complaints against him'

Yahoo

a day ago

Nicola Sturgeon has revealed Alex Salmond 'effectively admitted' he was guilty of one of the complaints about his behaviour towards women which led to his split from the SNP.
Ms Sturgeon said that her former mentor confessed during a meeting on April 4, 2018, when he showed her the contents of a letter from then-Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government Leslie Evans, detailing the range of the allegations against him.
She said she 'felt sick' at the nature of the complaints, one which particularly shocked her. Salmond insisted the allegation he had admitted to was a 'misunderstanding'.
Mr Salmond, who publicly maintained his innocence, would later face trial on 14 charges of sexual assault. He was acquitted on 12 of the charges, while another was found not proven and one was dropped.
In a second extract from her forthcoming memoir 'Frankly', published by The Times newspaper, former First Minister Sturgeon said her failure to protect her old boss led to him 'thirsting for revenge', and that he was 'determined' to bring her down her afterwards.
She also claims that Salmond would rather have destroyed the SNP than see it succeed without him.
Alex Salmond would later stand trial on 14 charges, mostly of sexual assault (Image: NQ) She writes: 'In the dining room of my house in Glasgow on April 4, 2018, with just him and me across a table, Alex showed me a copy of the letter he had received from the Scottish government's permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, informing him of the complaints against him.
'The substance of the complaints, one in particular, shocked me. I felt sick. After appearing to be upset and mortified by the allegations, Alex became cold.
'He effectively admitted the substance of one of the complaints, but claimed that it had been a 'misunderstanding', for which he had apologised at the time.'
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She adds: 'He made it obvious that he considered the whole process to be illegitimate. He would later claim differently, of course, but it was evident that he wanted me to intervene and to stop the investigation in its tracks or divert it into some kind of siding.
'I knew that I shouldn't do that. I didn't realise it then, but this decision made the break-up of one of the most successful partnerships in modern British politics all but inevitable.'
Ms Sturgeon has already shared a first extract from her book, where she detailed her belief that her sexuality is not binary, her despair at the probe into the SNP's finances which saw her and then-husband Peter Murrell arrested, and the heartache following her miscarriage in 2010.
In this second section, she goes over the behind-the-scenes breakdown of her relationship with Mr Salmond, and her grief at the end of their partnership.
Ms Sturgeon discusses the fallout from the botched investigation into the complaints carried out by the Scottish Government, which a judicial review launched by Salmond concluded had been "tainted with apparent bias" because the official who carried out the investigation had had contact with the complainers prior to the probe.
Alex Salmond later claimed that a "malicious and concerted" attempt to remove him from public life had occurred, in papers published ahead of his appearance at a Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish government's mishandling of the investigation.
Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond were once thought to have had an unbreakable partnership (Image: PA) In her memoir, Ms Sturgeon rejects the conspiracy claim, saying it was impossible.
She writes: "In Alex's narrative, he wasn't just a victim any more, he was now a vindicated victim. It was also at this point that his animus towards me was cemented.
"He was reportedly furious that I hadn't demanded the resignation of Leslie Evans. Leslie was the head of the civil service that had 'botched' the process. It was not unreasonable to say that the buck stopped with her.
"But I knew that, for him, Leslie's resignation was not about accountability. It was about vengeance. He wanted her punished for allowing him to be investigated in the first place. He would then have used her quitting as further 'proof' that he had been a victim all along."
She adds: "A conspiracy against Alex would have needed a number of women deciding to concoct false allegations, without any obvious motive for doing so.
"It would then have required criminal collusion between them, senior ministers and civil servants, the police and the Crown.
"That is what he was alleging. The 'conspiracy' was a fabrication, the invention of a man who wasn't prepared to reflect honestly on his own conduct. This is what I found hardest to come to terms with."
She says that the breakdown of their relationship with the man who was her political mentor, and who she served as deputy leader of the party, left her "bereft".
However, the ex-SNP leader hits out at Mr Salmond's lack of concern over the damage his actions would have on the SNP and the Scottish Government he once led.
She writes: "There was also never the merest hint of concern about the damage he did to the party he previously led. Indeed, it felt to me that he would have rather destroyed the SNP than see it succeed without him.
"He impugned the integrity of the institutions at the heart of Scottish democracy — government, police, Crown Office. He was prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all."
Ms Sturgeon says she still remains under Salmond's shadow (Image: NQ) She adds: "For a while I told myself that the bonds between Alex and me would be stronger than his thirst for revenge. Eventually, though, I had to face the fact that he was determined to destroy me.
"I was now engaged in mortal political combat with someone I knew to be both ruthless and highly effective. It was a difficult reality to reconcile myself to. So too was losing him as a friend.
"I went through what I can only describe as a grieving process. For a time after we stopped speaking I would have conversations with him in my head about politics and the issues of the day. I had occasional, vivid dreams in which we were still on good terms. I would wake up from these feeling utterly bereft."
Ms Sturgeon concludes that her relationship with Salmond, who died in 2024, never recovered, and that she still remains under his shadow.
She writes: "And now? Before he died, I thought I had reached the point of feeling nothing and that I had come to terms with it, wholly and completely. The emotions I felt on hearing of his death suggested otherwise.
"Yes, I have made peace with how things are, but it is an uneasy peace. I know I will never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death."