‘I DON’T know what’s true about Natalie anymore,” one of the disgraced former MP’s colleagues in Woman For Independence told The National last night.
When the woman, who was senior in the organisation, and who has asked not to be named, met McGarry for the first time in 2013 she felt as if she’d “met a true friend, a soul mate, someone that I’d be very close to for a long time.”
READ MORE: Former SNP MP Natalie McGarry is jailed for 18 months
It was years before she realised that her relationship with McGarry was based on “a tissue of deceit and a web of lies”.
“There are so many lies,” she added. “It’s heartbreaking. All I wanted from 2015 until today was for Natalie to turn round and say, ‘I’ve fucked up can we all be friends.’ I missed Natalie – well I don’t so much miss her now – but I miss the person I thought she was. I miss what I thought we had. I mean, we were close.
“And then she just shut down all contact with me when the investigation started.
“I don’t know who she is.
"I don’t know if she believes herself. I don’t know whether her supporters believe her.”
The women in WFI found themselves vilified by some in the independence movement for phoning the police on McGarry.
The ex-MP comes from an SNP dynasty – her mum, Alice, is a veteran councillor in Fife, her aunt is former Holyrood presiding officer Tricia Marwick. There were plenty of supporters rushing to her defence, including staff members working in the office of a government minister.
“I remember having a screaming fight with my friend who works at SNP HQ,” our source told us. “He was going you’ve got no proof, and I’m going, I have got fucking proof, of course I’ve got fucking proof.
“Do you think I’m going to ruin a woman’s life without proof. Do you think any of us were going to ruin a women’s life without proof?
“We knew it had happened.
"It wasn’t a case of, ‘oh there’s a wee bit money missing let’s go get the police’, there were comprehensive attempts by WFI to sort this out because we didn’t want it to be true.
“When we realised it was we had no choice. It would have been disgraceful for WFI to cover up the fact that money given to us, wee £5 donations here and there, hadn’t gone to where it was meant to be going to.”
Another women, who worked close with McGarry at WFI, said it was hard to feel sorry when she has “dragged this out this long" and was "still not admitting what she’s done.”
She said: “It’s been horrible, not knowing what’s going to happen for four years. Every private number I’ve thought it’s the police, every letter I’ve not recognised I’ve thought it was the courts. I wish she’d apologise and then everyone can move on.”
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