Nicola Sturgeon denies all wrongdoing in marathon Holyrood grilling

Nicola Sturgeon is not out to get Alex Salmond, the First Minister told the Holyrood inquiry into the government’s mishandling of sexual harassment complaints against her predecessor today. In a gruelling eight-hour session, Sturgeon denied any wrongdoing and insisted suggestions of a malicious plot against Salmond were “absurd” and “not based in any fact”.

The First Minister used her opening statement to apologise to the two female civil servants involved in the investigation, saying that these women had been “let down” as a result of a “very serious mistake”. She did not, however, accept any wrongdoing on her part. “In one of the most invidious political and personal situations I have ever faced, I believe I acted properly and appropriately,” she said.

Sturgeon said that the “simple” truth was that several women made serious complaints about Salmond’s behaviour and that she refused to “follow the age-old pattern of allowing a powerful man to use his status and connections to get what he wants”.

She said that Salmond, who has been cleared of all charges, was someone she had cared about for a long time, but that his behaviour was not always appropriate. She noted the omission of regret during his testimony on Friday.

The First Minister appeared in front of MSPs today to fight for her reputation, after the publication of documents last night raised doubts over her account of her involvement in the investigation into allegations against Salmond. Following the revelations, the Scottish Conservatives called for her resignation and tabled a motion of no confidence.

Salmond, supported by the documents published last night, claims Sturgeon was told about the allegations by his former chief of staff Geoff Aberdein in her office on 29 March 2018 – a meeting she previously claimed she “forgot about”. Sturgeon had told Holyrood and the media she first learned of the allegations from Salmond himself, at their meeting at her home on 2 April.

Defending her position today, Sturgeon said that at the 29 March meeting Aberdein “did indicate a harassment-type issue had arisen, but my recollection is he did so in general terms”. She said the meeting with Salmond at her home on 2 April was when she had “detailed and actual knowledge” of complaints being investigated by the civil service.

She rejected Salmond’s claims that the 2 April meeting was a government issue, stating instead that she thought he might be about to resign from the SNP, which would be a party matter that did not require civil servant involvement.

Defending herself against claims that she broke the ministerial code by failing to record this 2 April meeting, Sturgeon told MSPs: “My decision not to record the meeting on 2 April immediately wasn’t about the classification I gave it, not about it being a Party rather than a government meeting, it was because I did not want to compromise the independence of the confidentiality of the process under way.”

The First Minister also denied allegations made in a statement by lawyer Duncan Hamilton that she had offered to assist the former first minister in seeking mediation with the complainers at the 2 April meeting, saying that this would have been an abuse of her role.

In separate documents published last night, it was revealed that ministers were told as early as September 2018 that there was a “real risk” they would lose their court battle with Salmond on the basis that it was procedurally unfair. The government did not admit that it had acted unlawfully until January 2019, leaving taxpayers with a bill of more than £500,000 in legal fees and court costs.

Addressing the judicial review, Sturgeon told MSPs today that there was a strong prospect of defending the challenge, but that changed over a two-month period from October to December 2018. She said that as late as 11 December, the advice given was that it was “very clear there was no need to drop the case”.

She said: “The charge that has been made against me is that I wilfully allowed a judicial review to proceed against the legal advice, and therefore I broke the ministerial code… I was acting in accordance with the views of the law officers, not acting against the views of the law officers”.

Moving on to one of the most eye-catching claims made by Salmond, Labour’s Jackie Baillie asked Sturgeon about the messages, not seen by the committee, between Peter Murrell, SNP Chief Executive Officer and Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Ian McCann,  SNP compliance officer, and Sue Ruddick, the SNP Chief Operating Officer.

In his evidence on Friday, Salmond claimed that he has unpublished evidence showing that senior figures in the SNP, including Murrell, put pressure on and colluded with witnesses and “constructed evidence” against him. Responding to the claims, Sturgeon said: “If the committee gets to see the full text they will get a very different impression from the one they currently have”. She added: “The idea that suggests some kind of plot or conspiracy is actually quite offensive”.

Another key line of questioning in today’s inquiry was over various leaks from the Scottish government. Salmond claimed in his evidence that the identity of a complainant was revealed to Aberdein by the Scottish government ahead of his meeting with Sturgeon – a claim that was corroborated by new evidence from Hamilton released last night.

Denying these claims, Sturgeon said that “it did not happen in the way that has been described”. Instead, she said the former first minister did his own investigations to find out the name of one of the women who had complained and that he had already apologised to the other.

In separate allegations, Salmond has claimed that information published in the Daily Record newspaper about him was a politically inspired leak from the government, and that in all likelihood it was made by one of the First Minister’s special advisers. Sturgeon said “they didn’t come from me” and that she was “as certain as I can be that they didn’t come from anybody within my office”.

In her closing remarks, Sturgeon said: “Out of this comes the message: no matter how powerful you are or were, no matter your status or connections, if you are accused of serious offences they will be investigated and you will have the chance to defend yourself in court. That is how these things should work.”

“Mistakes have been made by government, that is undeniable. But the idea that because somebody doesn’t like what happened over the past couple of years we allow this attack to be made on the very fundamentals of democracy, I just find deeply distressing, deeply unfair and, actually, whatever you think about me, the SNP, the Scottish government, I think deeply injurious to the health and wellbeing of our democracy.”