{"id":787402,"date":"2026-09-30T12:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787402\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T12:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:12:13","slug":"peter-murrells-legal-aid-withdrawn-after-embezzlement-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787402\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Murrell&#8217;s legal aid withdrawn after embezzlement conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, who was jailed in June for embezzling more than \u00a3400,000 from the party, has had his legal aid withdrawn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Murrell, the estranged husband of ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, was sentenced to five years after using the funds to buy goods ranging from a luxury motorhome to toiletries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cq8z7y0xj0xo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">granted legal aid<\/a> &#8211; government-funded assistance typically given to people who cannot afford it &#8211; last year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotsman.com\/news\/politics\/peter-murrell-has-legal-aid-pulled-9219576\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Scotsman, external<\/a> reported that Murrell was informed his support would be withdrawn on 28 July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Scottish Legal Aid Board paid out \u00a34,831 to fund legal counsel for Murrell. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That total could rise, as his lawyers could request payment for work carried out before the legal aid was withdrawn. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, who was jailed in June for embezzling more than \u00a3400,000 from the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-787402","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\/787402","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=787402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}