When will we get answers on SNP finances probe?

Yahoo

29-01-2025

Does anyone know what's happened to the more than £600,000 that's disappeared from the SNP's coffers? Or to Peter Murrell, who was charged last year with embezzlement in connection with the missing money. Or to his wife, Nicola Sturgeon, who was arrested and then released pending further enquiries eighteen months ago.
The money's been gone for around five years and an investigation into where it went is into its fourth year. But even after all this time, nobody seems to know anything.
The latest to admit he hasn't a clue is none other than Lord Carloway, Lord President of the Court of Session, and as such Scotland's most senior judge. He's due to retire shortly but before going he was asked what he thought had happened to the probe, which began in 2021, involving the police, the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Office, Scotland's prosecuting authority.
If any of them know where the loot went, they ain't saying and although he doesn't know either Lord Carloway did admit that there had clearly been what he called a 'hold up' in the deliberations of Operation Branchform, the strange name given to the investigation by the police.
Calling it a 'hold up' is arguably one of the greatest understatements this eminent jurist has come up with in a long and distinguished career.
However, even that description intrigues this observer for the simple reason that if someone like Lord Carloway, who sits at the pinnacle of Scotland's legal system, doesn't know what's causing the aforesaid hold up, has he tried to find out?
However, there is a view amongst some of m'learned friends in their lair at the top of Edinburgh's Royal Mile that a judge, even a very senior judge, would have no business asking what progress was being made in a police inquiry. And so, they thought there was no chance that the Lord President would even seek to find out.
Old Carloway, they reckoned, would have to wait, like the rest of us, for Branchform to eventually produce its findings.
However, wouldn't senior legal colleagues know what was causing the hold up? Someone like, for instance, the Lord Advocate and/or the Solicitor General, perhaps. Wouldn't they know? Not necessarily, because as both lady law officers are also ministers in the Scottish Government they have recused themselves from playing any part in the deliberations concerning this massive investigation.
But what about 'proper' members of the Scottish Government, like First Minister John Swinney or his Justice Minister, Angela Constance. They steer well clear of any mention of the missing money and of Operation Branchform and why wouldn't they, given that their party's at the centre of things.
The former SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell, was arrested, freed pending further inquiries and, then, charged last year with embezzlement in connection with the missing £600,000.
His wife, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (they have announced their intention to divorce) was also arrested and released pending further enquiries, which when last we heard, were still under way. This was also the case with Colin Beattie, the SNP's former treasurer.
Ms Sturgeon has always insisted she is innocent of any wrong-doing.
For their part, the Crown Office issued its normal statement to the effect that the investigation was still under way, without - for Lord Carloway's benefit – making any mention of a hold up.
It's heartening, I suppose, to learn that Scotland's most senior judge, the Lord President of the Court of Session, knows as much as the rest of us – i.e. nothing.
Isn't it?
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