A pro-independence blogger aiming to force a judicial review of Police Scotland's decision not to investigate how £660,000 worth of donations was spent by the SNP has smashed a fundraising target.
The Wings Over Scotland website has raised more than £30,000 via an online crowdfunder in just three days after launching on October 2.
Stuart Campbell, who runs the site, said more than 1,000 people had donated to the campaign, which seeks answers over why cops chose to focus the long-running Operation Branchform investigation on Peter Murrell.
Funds for legal action
The £30,000 will be spent on applying for a judicial review. But Campbell has said he will only proceed with the action if he is first successful with an application for a Protected Expenses Order (PEO), which would limit the amount he is liable to pay if the action fails in court.
Campbell said: "It currently appears that the powerful elite in Scotland are immune from the justice that applies to everyone else."
"The only meaningful option available to try to force the police and prosecutor to do their jobs is to bring a judicial review, which is what this appeal is for."
He added: "Before an application for a PEO can be filed, the case must first be brought to the court, and it is that initial phase for which we are raising this appeal."
"Our KC is working pro bono and our solicitors at a greatly discounted rate, but nevertheless preparing and filing the application, and allowing a contingency for the other side's costs, will require around £30,000."
Background of the case
Murrell, the disgraced former SNP chief executive, pled guilty in May this year to embezzling more than £400,000 from his employers over a 10-year period.
But the police investigation which led to his conviction was initially launched in 2021 after 14 complaints were received from members of the public about how more than £660,000 of donations were ultimately spent by the SNP.
The party ran two online fundraisers in 2017 and 2019 and pledged the funds would be "ring-fenced" for an IndyRef2 campaign that never took place.
The Record understands detectives took a decision in 2023 to focus their probe on Murrell, the estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon. He was ultimately jailed for five years in June.
Campbell's earlier concerns
Campbell first wrote a blog in 2020 asking what had happened to the more than £600,000 of donations - a full six years before Murrell was jailed.
"Back at that time I was quite friendly with several people who were on the SNP NEC," Campbell told the BBC Scotcast podcast just days after Murrell's jailing. "And some of them came to me and, said, 'look, we've been asking questions about this, and we keep getting fobbed off'."
"It didn't take a great deal of digging. All you had to do was go and look at the SNP's published accounts. It was clear, even at the start of 2020, that a large sum of money had gone missing."
Operation Branchform's focus was initially a potential fraud inquiry - but by early spring 2023 the investigation's attention had focused to a potential embezzlement, with spending by Murrell coming under forensic examination.
But Campbell insists there has yet to be justice for the original donors to the ringfenced fund.
"The whole thing about this story is there have been two crimes," he told the BBC. "There has been either fraud, or embezzlement, by the SNP, depending on the circumstances, against thousands of donors. And there has been embezzlement by Peter Murrell against the SNP - the two are totally separate crimes. We uncovered the first one, and that hasn't been addressed or resolved in anyway."
The SNP has insisted the original police investigation dealt with all of these matters and established the party was a victim of Murrell's crimes.
Previously asked how the ringfenced cash had been spent, Swinney said: "That money is part of the resources that are available to the SNP to support its independence objectives and the SNP is the party of independence and that's what we campaign for."
Asked if all of the money had been spent, he replied: "I'm saying it's part of the ongoing activities of the Scottish National Party."
"We're the party that campaigns for independence. We just fought an election campaign in which we had a very, very strong anchoring of our campaign for independence."
"If that's not the use of the resources then I'm not sure I understand what the resources are for."
