Close to tears as she reveals toll of Salmond complaints
NiCOLA Sturgeon revealed she felt ‘let down’ by Alex Salmond after he admitted to ‘deeply inappropriate behaviour’ towards a woman.
The First Minister yesterday recounted the moment she and her predecessor’s 30-year friendship ended after they first discussed two harassment complaints made against him in 2018.
Miss Sturgeon, who appeared close to tears at times, said she found it ‘uncomfortable’ to publicly speak about the personal impact.
She also said the suggestion Mr Salmond had been the victim of a ‘malicious’ plot is ‘absurd’.
Miss Sturgeon first met Mr Salmond in 1990 during his campaign to become leader of the SNP for the first time. She joined the cause, and in 1992 stood for the SNP in the general election at the age of 21 after being encouraged to stand by Mr Salmond.
She has previously said that ‘he believed in me, long before i believed in myself ’.
Miss Sturgeon said they had been close political colleagues and friends. She said she had ‘looked up to and revered’ Mr Salmond.
However, the friendship went into a tailspin after the former First Minister produced a copy of a letter he had received from Permanent Secretary Leslie evans at a meeting on April 2, 2018.
it confirmed a Scottish Government investigation into two complaints of harassment against him. On seeing the letter, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘My head was spinning, i was experiencing a maelstrom of emotions, i had been told something pretty shocking by Alex Salmond and there were a number of things in my head.’
Miss Sturgeon told Holyrood’s inquiry into the Government’s botched probe into the complaints she felt ‘really uncomfortable’ speaking about such matters.
She said: ‘We’re talking here about serious allegations that have led to the breakdown in a relationship with somebody that was really important to me, on all sorts of levels. i do feel uncomfortable when i speak about this, on a human level.’
Their relationship is now at the stage where Miss Sturgeon said she would ‘dearly love to get to a point where i don’t have to think about Alex Salmond’s behaviour, or alleged behaviour, ever again’.
But Miss Sturgeon said Mr Salmond’s account to her is a ‘moment in my life that i will never forget’, as she maintained she did not intervene in the Scottish Govnificant ernment’s investigation into her predecessor as First Minister.
Giving details of how she came to find out about the allegations, Miss Sturgeon said she met Geoff Aberdein, Mr Salmond’s former aide, on March 29, when he ‘did indicate a harassment-type issue’ but ‘in general terms’.
She said she wishes her memory of the March 29 meeting was ‘more vivid’, but ‘it was the detail of the complaints under the procedure i was given on April 2 that was sig
and indeed shocking’. Describing the April 2 meeting in her home with Mr Salmond, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘What he described constituted in my view deeply inappropriate behaviour on his part, perhaps a reason why that moment is embedded so strongly in my mind. Many of us, including me, feel let down by him.’
Miss Sturgeon added: ‘i have learned things about Alex Salmond over the past couple of years that have made me rethink certain things i thought about him.
‘No doubt he would say the same about me.’
She said: ‘As i was watching him on Friday lashing out – that’s my words – against us, i don’t know whether he ever reflects on the fact that many of us, including me, feel very let down by him.
‘That’s a matter of deep personal pain and regret for me.’
Appearing close to tears, Miss Sturgeon added: ‘i think i probably should stop there.’
in his evidence last week, Mr Salmond alleged there had been a plot to damage his reputation, something Miss Sturgeon rejected as an ‘absurd suggestion and a claim ‘not based in any fact’.
‘I watched him lash out against us’