Scotland’s former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has described her arrest by police investigating the SNP’s finances as the worst day of her life. Sturgeon describes being questioned by detectives as part of Operation Branchform in an extract from her upcoming memoir. She writes about her “utter disbelief” about police raiding the home she shared with her husband Peter Murrell in April 2023.
Sturgeon was arrested in June 2023 and was told in March this year that she would face no further action and was no longer a suspect. Her husband, the former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, was charged with embezzlement in April 2024. The couple announced they were separating earlier this year.
Sturgeon also talks in detail about her experience of becoming pregnant and suffering a miscarriage aged 40 in 2010. She said she had never yearned for a baby but her husband desperately wanted to be a dad. When she found out she was pregnant, she writes, “Peter was ecstatic. I wanted to be. I told him I was. But — and I still feel so guilty about this — I was deeply conflicted.”
Sturgeon writes about the guilt she felt at being conflicted about the pregnancy and the guilt she now feels after miscarrying. She also describes continuing to work while suffering “constant agony, the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced” and feeling “heartbroken” about the loss.
Sturgeon says that she was convinced the baby would have been a girl called Isla, writing: “I do deeply regret not getting the chance to be Isla’s mum. It might not make sense, but she feels real to me. And I know that I will mourn her for the rest of my life.”
The former first minister also addresses rumours about her sexuality, in particular an unfounded claim that she was having an affair with a female French diplomat. “There were slightly different versions of the story, but the consistent theme seemed to be that I was having a torrid lesbian affair,” she writes.
Sturgeon writes that she would normally have ignored such “wild stories from the darker recesses of social media,” but this one ended up being discussed by her neighbours, family and friends. She describes much of the social media and online comment as being driven by homophobia.
Sturgeon says she has never considered sexuality, her own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters. Her memoir, Frankly, will be published on Thursday 14 August.
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