Ex MP denies embezzling £25k from indy groups
McGarry tells court she is ‘not the most organised’ at admin tasks
A FORMER MP yesterday denied embezzling more than £25,000 from two Scottish independence organisations.
Natalie McGarry, 40, who once represented Glasgow East for the SNP, told a court: ‘I’m a good organiser but I’m not the most organised person.’
She is said to have embezzled £21,000 while treasurer for Women for Independence (WFI) between April 2013 and November 2015. A second charge alleges McGarry took £4,661 between April 2014 and August 2015 when she was treasurer, secretary and convenor of Glasgow Regional Association (GRA) of the SNP.
McGarry, of Clarkston, Renfrewshire, denies the two charges at Glasgow Sheriff Court. Giving evidence yesterday, she told the jury she suffers from a condition which affects her vocal nerves and is impacted by her mental health.
Asked by her defence counsel Allan MacLeod whether she embezzled money from the WFI group McGarry replied: ‘Cer2013. tainly not.’ She also denied embezzling cash from the GRA and misappropriating funds from either organisation for her own use.
McGarry claimed that she joined WFI to bridge the gap between male and female voices in the independence campaign.
She claimed to have taken a more hands-on administrative role after being embarrassed over an unpaid bill of £187 owed to a printing firm which was known to her personally.
She claimed that she and fellow founding member Shona McAlpine did the ‘donkey work’ for the organisation.
McGarry later said: ‘I’m a good organiser but I’m not the most organised person, this is not what I signed up for. I believed in the organisation and independence.
Someone had to step up and do it and there didn’t seem as if there were people doing it. It was just falling by the wayside and I didn’t want it to fail and Shona McAlpine didn’t want it to fail.’
She said the pair pushed WFI through 2013 and 2014 and were ‘overwhelmed’. McGarry claimed she was unemployed at the time and was being helped out financially by her parents.
McGarry said her ‘arm was pulled’ when she decided to stand as a candidate in the Cowdenbeath by-election for Holyrood in She was defeated and later stood again for the SNP at the 2015 UK General Election as a candidate for Glasgow East, where she was elected.
McGarry said: ‘My campaign team were the best and deserved someone who would give their all to the campaign and I did and they did – we exhausted ourselves. There was nothing that we didn’t do that we could have.’
McGarry added that she was not ‘focused enough’ on WFI business during the election campaign.
She said she did not stand for election again in 2017, adding: ‘This was hanging over me and I wasn’t able to fight the election again and I was pregnant as well.’
McGarry told jurors that she linked her personal bank account to a WFI PayPal account so that donations for a crowdfunder could continue. Asked if she saw this as a problem, she said: ‘It wasn’t ideal but in retrospect, would I do 1,000 things differently?
‘I would have done things completely differently and not gone near any of it.’
Mr MacLeod asked how WFI benefited by money being in her bank account. She replied: ‘I was purchasing on behalf of WFI and I was able to as it was my bank card as I had to pay for things I couldn’t pay for by cheque or cash.’ agreed that blank cheques were signed and that it was ‘not practical’ but claimed that the same thing happened in other organisations.
Mr MacLeod asked: ‘Did anyone say to you through this period, hang on a moment, that’s a bit of a rubbish financial summary you gave, give more facts and figures?’
McGarry replied: ‘Not that I can recall as no one was interested in the small details of how we operated – people just wanted things done. People say they offered me assistance during this and on one occasion I asked for assistance and no one turned up to help me.’
The trial, before Sheriff Tom Hughes, continues.
‘Someone had to step up and do it’
‘No one turned up to help me’