MSPs have dismissed allegations that messages sent by Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, and other senior Scottish National party officials, proved a conspiracy to destroy Alex Salmond.
WhatsApp and text messages sent by Murrell, the SNP chief executive, have been central to Salmond’s claims of “malicious and concerted” efforts to search out alleged victims of sexual assault and pressurise the police to investigate.
Extracts of the messages were leaked last year to Kenny MacAskill, an SNP MP who was previously Scotland’s justice secretary and is a Salmond ally, and fuelled claims that the party, government and prosecutors were colluding.
One text from Murrell, on 25 January 2020, said it was a “good time to be pressurising” police as they were “twiddling their thumbs” during an apparent lull in their investigations. MSPs believe the full chain of texts refer to police requests for help in tracing victims.
A second said: “The more fronts [Salmond] is having to firefight on the better for all complainers. So [Crown Prosecution Service] action would be a good thing.” MSPs believe that referred to the news the CPS was not taking any action after a Met police investigation into historical allegations in London.
MSPs on a Scottish parliament inquiry into the Scottish government’s botched investigation of sexual assault allegations against Salmond, believe the full text messages are either justifiable or capable of having other, less sinister meanings.
The Crown Office released the full texts, and those sent before and after them, after parliament issued another disclosure order instructing it to do so.
The texts, while at times hyperbolic, were more innocuous than first appeared, committee members believe. They showed SNP officials and some complainers encouraging people to come forward, but not to the extent they established a conspiracy.
It is understood the committee’s final report, to be published on 22 or 23 March, will reject Salmond’s allegations they prove unaccepted interference in the police investigation and collusion.
However, the committee has not seen a batch of emails involving SNP officials who became complainers in Salmond’s criminal trial. Salmond believes those do show unjustified collusion, but they are not being sought because they relate directly to the trial.
Salmond told the Holyrood inquiry last month he first saw those messages in January 2020, two months before he went on trial on 14 charges of sexual assault, including one attempted rape. He was acquitted of every charge. Reading them “was one of the most extraordinary days of my life”, he said. They showed “pressurising the police … pressurising witnesses and collusion with witnesses” and the “construction of evidence”.
Murrell rejected Salmond’s claims the texts proved a conspiracy but, in his evidence session last month, acknowledged the language was inappropriate and “out of character.” He said: “To me, that suggests just how upset I was at the time.”
Committee members believe Holyrood should publish the full exchanges, as there was a risk the selective leaking had mischaracterised them to the public. The committee has asked Murrell, and two other SNP officials involved in the discussions, Sue Ruddick, the chief operating officer, and Ian McCann, its compliance officer, for permission to publish them.
The committee has yet to decide how they can see Scottish government emails that may show senior officials were unhappy about alleged interference in the internal inquiry into harassment complaints about Salmond, made by a government official. Salmond’s lawyers are said to hold those emails.
MSPs decided earlier this week to issue Salmond’s lawyers with a disclosure order, but that is legally difficult. They may instead instruct the Crown Office to do so, with only a week left before the committee needs to complete its report.