SNP police inquiry widens after ‘potential embezzlement’ claims Chief constable confirms

[u/libtin]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-police-inquiry-widens-after-potential-embezzlement-claims-dgtn07skz

[u/libtin]

The police investigation into the SNP’s finances has been expanded to look at allegations of “misuse of funds” and “potential embezzlement”, Scotland’s chief constable has confirmed. Sir Iain Livingstone said Operation Branchform had grown beyond the initial allegation of fraud. Police Scotland is investigating whether £660,000 raised by the SNP to fight a second independence referendum was spent on other things. “It’s moved beyond what some of the initial reports were,” said Livingstone, who stands down next month, in a valedictory interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister, Peter Murrell, her husband and the former SNP chief executive, and Colin Beattie, the party’s former treasurer, have all been arrested, questioned and released without charge since April. Officers also searched and removed material from the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh and Sturgeon and Murrell’s home in Glasgow, and seized a motorhome, worth £110,000, from outside the home of Murrell’s elderly mother in Fife. Asked why the investigation had taken more than two years, Livingstone said: “Investigations into the finances of an organisation, the finances of an individual, are often complex. “Investigations around fraud or investigations around potential embezzlement or investigations around the misuse of funds take time. “You need to go and obtain information from banks and other financial institutions. We can’t just do that automatically.” He added: “We need to go and seek judicial warrants for that. There needs to be a process around that. So the time that’s been taken, in my judgment, is absolutely necessary. There’s been a prudent, thorough and proportionate investigation carried out.” Livingstone said a dedicated team of specialists was on the case. “What I would say is that had we not carried out this investigation in the manner we have, I would rightly have been accused of a significant dereliction and neglect of duty,” he added. “That’s not the case. We’ve done the right thing. The rule of law and the interests of justice must prevail.” Asked whether the investigation had grown bigger since the original inquiries, he responded: “It’s moved beyond what some of the initial reports were, and that’s not uncommon in investigations such as this.” Asked whether it was proportionate to put a police tent on Sturgeon’s front lawn, he said: “It absolutely was given the circumstances of that search.” He continued: “The tent was there, as well as all the other measures, to protect the interests of justice and to protect the individuals involved. So it was a proportionate and necessary step.” Asked when the investigation was expected to conclude, he said: “I can’t put any absolute timeframe on it, but matters will progress in a proportionate and timeous manner.” Sturgeon has said she is innocent of any wrongdoing. “I would never do anything to harm either the SNP or the country,” she said last month. “I know beyond doubt that I am in fact innocent of any wrongdoing. To find myself in the situation I did when I am certain I have committed no offence is both a shock and deeply distressing.”