MP McGarry is charged after claims of missing charity cash
GLASGOW East MP Natalie McGarry has been charged by the police in connection with alleged fraud.
It is understood the charges relate to separate sums that were reported missing from the Women For Independence group and the SNP’s Glasgow Regional Association.
Ms McGarry’s solicitor Aamer Anwar said the MP voluntarily attended Govan police station yesterday morning, where she was detained and questioned.
He said: “Following an interview, she was charged with several alleged offences including embezzlement of funds, breach of trust and an offence under the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013. She was released and will now be the subject of a report to the Procurator Fiscal. “There will be no further comment.” Ms McGarry, elected as the SNP member for Glasgow East in May 2015, has previously denied any wrongdoing.
The niece of former Scottish Parliament Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick, Ms McGarry was an SNP candidate in a Holyrood by-election in Cowdenbeath in January 2014, coming second.
During the rest of 2014, Ms McGarry was active in the Women For Independence group (WFI), a group she helped found in 2012.
She was then selected as the SNP candidate in Glasgow East for the General Election, going on to defeat Labour’s Margaret Curran by 10,387 votes.
However, last November, WFI called in the police after reporting about £40,000 had gone missing from donations largely raised through crowdfunding campaigns.
Ms McGarry, who had access to a Paypal account used by WFI for donations, resigned from the SNP whip at Westminster the following day.
In May this year, Police Scotland began investigating a second complaint against Ms McGarry, after the SNP’s Glasgow Regional Association reported about £4,000 unaccounted for.
Ms McGarry, who had been the group’s convener from 2011 to 2015 and the main signatory on its bank account, again denied wrongdoing.
Ms McGarry was the second SNP MP to quit the whip shortly after the General
Election. Last September, Edinburgh West MP Michelle Thomson did so after it emerged her solicitor had been struck off for professional misconduct for his part in 13 deals related to her £1.7 million property portfolio.
Both Ms McGarry and Ms Thomson currently sit as independent MPs, although Ms Thomson, with the support of the SNP group, is lobbying the party hierarchy to be reinstated.
The news is likely to raise fresh questions about the SNP’s candidate vetting.
Before the General Election, Nicola Sturgeon said “ultimately, the bucks stops with me” on candidate selections.
Ms McGarry is no stranger to controversy. In January, she prompted a Twitter row by accusing JK Rowling of bullying, resulting in a threat of legal proceedings, and in May, she was forced to pay out £10,000 and admit to a “serious mistake” after wrongly accusing a pro-Union campaigner of being a “Holocaust denier” on social media.
She also voted in her wedding dress at Westminster in June, after her marriage to David Meikle, Glasgow’s only Conservative councillor, was blessed in the building’s undercroft.
An MP given more than a year in jail loses their seat. But under an act introduced in the last Westminster Parliament, MPs can be “recalled” if sentenced to less than a year or a suspended sentence. IT is The Herald’s policy to correct errors as soon as we can and all corrections and clarifications will usually appear on this page.
The Herald adheres to the Editors’ Code of Practice (see www.ipso.co.uk). We are regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).
Complaints about stories should be referred firstly to the Editor at complaints@theherald. co.uk or by post, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB.
If a resolution cannot be reached, contact Ipso at inquiries@ipso.co.uk or by post at Ipso, Gate House, 1 Farringdon Street,London EC4M 7LG.