NICOLA Sturgeon has claimed that Alex Salmond told her of his "deeply inappropriate behaviour" towards one of the civil servants who accused him of harassment. 

Making her long-awaited appearance before Holyrood’s harassment committee, the First Minister told MSPs that she angered her predecessor by refusing to intervene in the Scottish Government's probe against him.

In her opening statement, the First Minister said she had "refused to follow the age old pattern of allowing a powerful man to use his status and connections to get what he wants." 

Sturgeon is fighting for her political career. The Tories have tabled a vote of no confidence in her, accusing her of lying and breaching the ministerial code. 

One of the key charges against her is over when she knew of the allegations against Salmond.

Initially, after the Scottish Government conceded the judicial review in January 2019, Sturgeon told parliament that she had first become aware of the government’s investigation of the allegations against Salmond when he told her at a meeting in her Glasgow home on April 2, 2018.

However, it later emerged that she met his former chief of staff Geoff Aberdein, three days earlier on March 29.  

In her written evidence to the committee, Sturgeon said she had forgotten about this meeting and that it was opportunistic and casual.

Salmond had said this is untenable and that the meeting was formal, and it was explicitly set up to the meeting on April 2 about the investigation.

That was backed up last night when two senior SNP figures - former party strategist Kevin Pringle, and advocate Duncan Hamilton, a former MSP - told the committee that the First Minister knew about the purpose of the meeting in advance.

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But in her long awaited evidence session, the First Minister said there was “no shared understanding on the part of all the participants of the issues for discussion.“

She added: “When he arrived at my house he was insistent that he speak to me entirely privately away from his former chief of staff Geoff Aberdein and Duncan Hamilton who had accompanied him, and my chief of staff who was with me. 

“That would have seemed unnecessary had there already been a shared understanding on the part of all of us. He then asked me to read a letter he had received from the Permanent Secretary.

"This letter sets out the fact that complaints of sexual harassment had been made against him by two individuals, it made clear that these complaints were being investigated under the procedure adopted at the end of 2017, and it set iut the details of what he was alleged to have done

“Reading this letter is a moment in my life that I will never forget. And although he denied the allegations, he gave me his account of one of the incidents complained off, which he said he had apologised for at the time.

"What he described constituted in my view, deeply inappropriate behaviour on his part, perhaps another reason why that moment is embedded so strongly in my mind. 

“At the time he was showing me the letter and outlining his account. Geoff and Duncan were doing the same with my chief of staff. Again, this would seem unnecessary had she and I known everything in advance.” 

Sturgeon said she had "no wish to question the sincerity of Goeff's recollection" but that was "clear that my recollection is different and that I did not and do not attach the same significance to that discussion that he has."

The First Minister said Aberdein had indicated "that a harassment type issue had arisen" but in "general terms."

"Since an approach from Sky News in November 2017, and I mentioned this in my written evidence to the committee, I had harbored a lingering suspicion that such issues in relation to Mr Salmond might raise their head," she said.

She added: “What I recall mostly strongly about the conversation is how worried Geoff seemed to be about Alex’s welfare and his state of mind, which as a friend concerned me.

"He also says he thought Alex might be considereding resigning his party membership. It was these factors that led me to agree to meet him and it was these factors that placed the meeting on the second of April firmly in the personal and party space." 

She said that even if she had known at the earlier meeting what she later learned her actions "wouldn't necessarily have been different." 

"Given what I was told about the distress, I was in, and how it was suggested to me that he might be intended to handle matters, it is likely that I would still have agreed to meet him as a friend and as his party leader."

The nature of the conversation matters because if it was government business then under the ministerial code it should have been properly recorded.

Sturgeon said that she worried that recording the meeting could "compromise the independence or the confidentiality of the process underway." 

"The terms of the procedure excluded me from any investigation into a former minister. I have no role in the process and should not even have known that an investigation was underway. 

"So in my judgement the undue influence that [section four of the ministerial code] is designed to avoid would have been more likely to arise had those conducting an investigation been informed that I knew about it.

"I didn't want to take the risk that they might be influenced even subconsciously by any assumption of how I might want the matter handled.

"Their ability to do the job independently would be better protected by me saying nothing."

Sturgeon said it was only when Salmond said he was considering legal action that she informed the Permanent Secretary.

"I had no intention of intervening in the process and I did not intervene in the process. Mr Salmond's anger at me for this I think is evident. But intervening in a process that I was expressly excluded from and trying on behalf of a course associate to change the course it might take, would have been an abuse of my role."

The cross-party harassment committee is investigating the Scottish Government’s flawed probe into allegations of misconduct made against Alex Salmond by two civil servants.

The former first minister had the exercise set aside in January 2019, with a judicial review declaring it “unlawful” and “tainted by bias”.

The Government’s botched handling ultimately cost the taxpayer half a million pounds.

Salmond was then cleared of 13 charges of sexual harassment.

His supporters have long claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy. 

But in her evidence, the First Minister said it was "absurd" to suggest that senior SNP and government figures acted with “malice” or that there was a plot.

She said: “What happened is this, and it is simple: A number of women made serious complaints about Alex Salmond's behaviour. The government, despite the mistake it undoubtedly made, tried to do the right thing. 

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“As First Minister, I refused to follow the age old pattern of allowing a powerful man to use his status and connections to get what he wants. 

“The police conducted an independent criminal investigation. The Crown Office, as it does in prosecutions every single day of the week, considered the evidence and decided there was a case to answer. 

“A court and a jury did their jobs. And now this committee and an independent investigation are considering what happened and why. 

“For my part, I am, if not relishing the prospect, relieved to be finally facing this committee, but given all that has brought us to this moment,  being here also makes me really sad, and in all the legitimate consideration of this, sometimes the personal and human elements of this situation are lost.

“Alex spoke on Friday about what a nightmare, the last couple of years have been for him. And I don't doubt that. I have thought often about the impact on him. He was someone I cared about for a long time. 

“And maybe that's why on Friday, I found myself searching for any sign, any sign at all, that he recognised how difficult this has been for others too. First and foremost, for women who believed his behaviour towards them was inappropriate, but also for those of us who have campaigned with him, worked with him, cared for him and considered him a friend, and now stand unfairly accused of plotting against them.

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“That he was acquitted by a jury of criminal conduct is beyond question, but I know, just from what he told me that his behaviour was not always appropriate. And yet across six hours of testimony, there was not a single word of regret, reflection, or even simple acknowledgement of that. 

“I can only hope that in private the reality might be different. 

“Today though is about my actions. I've never claimed in this or anything else to be infallible.

"I have searched my soul on all of this, many, many times over. It may very well be that I didn't get everything right, that's for others to judge, but in one of the most invidious political and personal situations I have ever faced I believe I acted properly, and appropriately, and that overall, I made the best judgments I could.” 

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