FORMER SNP chief executive Peter Murrell's appearance at the High Court has been postponed until after the Holyrood election.
Murrell, the estranged husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, is alleged to have used SNP funds to buy luxury items, cars, and a motorhome – as well as falsified documents linked to the sales, according to documents first reported by the Scottish Sun.
The businessman was due to appear at a preliminary hearing on February 20.
However, that appearance has now been pushed back to May 25, with the hearing, which had been due to take place at the High Court in Glasgow, now taking place in Edinburgh.
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A statement said: “The court, having granted an application, has discharged the preliminary hearing scheduled for February 20 under Section 75A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
“The preliminary hearing will now take place on May 25, 2026 at the High Court in Edinburgh.”
The allegations against Murrell cover a period from August 12, 2010 to January 13, 2023, a total of 12 years and five months.
The SNP was running the Scottish Government for the entirety of the time period, which also covers the 2014 independence referendum.
Among the charges against Murrell, the most detailed relates to the now-notorious motorhome, which was allegedly purchased from a dealer in Stafford, in England, in October 2020 with £12,500 put onto an SNP credit card.
In December 2020, Murrell is alleged to have paid a further £112,050 from an SNP bank account to the dealer, and then had the motorhome delivered to Dunfermline, where it was stored at his parents' property.
Then he is accused of having created false documentation “to portray the purchase as a legitimate party expense by altering or removing true details of the motorhome sale".
Murrell served as SNP chief executive from 2001 to 2023, and the party first won a Holyrood election under Alex Salmond in 2007.
His resignation from the role came in March 2023, one month after Sturgeon resigned as Scotland's first minister.
Murrell was arrested in April 2023 and questioned by detectives while his Uddingston home, which he shared with Sturgeon, and the SNP's headquarters were searched.
He was then released without charge, but was re-arrested and charged with embezzlement one year later, in April 2024.
In March 2025, Sturgeon and former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie, who had also been arrested and questioned in the police's probe into the party's finances, were both cleared after the investigation was closed.
Two months prior, in January 2025, Sturgeon had announced that her and Murrell were splitting up after 15 years of marriage and 22 years together.
The police investigation, which was codenamed Operation Branchform, had been launched in 2021 following a complaint about what the party had done with more than £600,000 raised from the general public with the stated aim of fighting a second independence referendum.
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