Crown to get Murrell report ‘in weeks’

PROSECUTORS will be handed a police report on allegations against former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell in a ‘matter of weeks’, Scotland’s police chief has said.

Nicola Sturgeon’s husband was charged by police last month in connection with the embezzlement of SNP funds.

The 59-year-old was taken into police custody as part of a long-running probe into his party’s finances.

Chief Constable Jo Farrell revealed that a standard prosecution report relating to Mr Murrell would be handed to the Crown Office ‘in a matter of weeks and the [wider] inquiry continues’. Ms Farrell said she was confident that the probe was being carried out in an ‘objective manner’.

And she said Operation Branchform – the SNP fraud inquiry – was the most ‘politically sensitive’ investigation she had ever been involved with.

According to the Scottish Government, on receipt of a standard prosecution report from the police, a prosecutor reviews the case and considers whether a crime has been committed and whether there is a ‘sufficiency of admissible, credible and reliable evidence against the accused person’.

If it is decided that there is, then ‘consideration is… given to whether prosecutorial action is in the public interest’.

Mr Murrell was questioned by detectives for more than nine hours as part of the ongoing Operation Branchform.

Former party leader Ms Sturgeon and Colin Beattie, the SNP’s former treasurer, were previously arrested as part of the inquiry.

They were later released without charge, pending further investigation.