Murrell\u2019s guilty plea<\/a> on 25 May, the judge told Murrell he wanted to send a clear warning to others that these crimes carried significant punishments.<\/p>\n\u201cLet me make it clear to you, one factor in the sentence I impose today will be to act as a deterrent to any senior officials in other large organisations who might be tempted to abuse their position in the way you did,\u201d Young said.<\/p>\n
If Murrell had pleaded not guilty and had gone to trial, he would have faced seven years in jail.<\/p>\n
Despite a lengthy criminal social work report based on interviews with Murrell, Young said he could find no satisfactory explanation for his crimes. Murrell had told the author of that report that he had found it impossible to stop his embezzlement until he was arrested.<\/p>\n
John Scullion KC, Murrell\u2019s defence lawyer, told the court Murrell took full responsibility for his crimes and knew time in prison was \u201centirely deserved\u201d. He felt \u201cguilt and remorse\u201d and had been \u201coverwhelmed by feelings of embarrassment and shame\u201d.<\/p>\n
Since his arrest, Murrell had become very isolated, been ostracised by his friends and former colleagues, and become \u201ca figure of public ridicule\u201d. There was no prospect of him reoffending, Scullion said. \u201cHis humiliation will endure beyond any sentence his lordship imposes, and may prove lifelong. His future beyond custody is uncertain but presently seems bleak and solitary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scullion confirmed that Murrell had enough money of his own to repay the \u00a3400,310.65 he stole from the SNP under a criminal confiscation order, but Young postponed a hearing on those proceedings until mid-September to give the prosecution and defence further time to decide on the full figure.<\/p>\n
Under the Proceedings of Crime<\/a> Act, the state can apply interest and other costs, including any benefits to the offender, at a set tariff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peter Murrell has been sentenced to five years and three months in jail after he admitted embezzling more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-653814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}