The police investigation was initially looking into fraud, but as experts ploughed through thousands of transactions, the first red flags started to appear.

It is understood these concerned the purchase of Le Creuset products, including mugs, ramekins, a wine carafe and bottle stopper.

At a time when the party’s finances were lower than normal, the luxury cookware products stood out.

Officers then discovered the items had been mis-coded in the party’s accounts.

This breakthrough helped shift the focus of the inquiry from fraud to embezzlement.

Image source, PA Media

Peter Murrell has left the High Court in Edinburgh in the back of a prison van.

The white van with the branding of prison transport firm GeoAmey on the side pulled out of the garage underneath the court just after 11:30 on Tuesday.

Turning left up Bank Street into bright sunshine, it headed towards George IV Bridge before disappearing from view.

Last month Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC she feels like she is "serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit".

In an exclusive interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Sturgeon refused to apologise for the scandal and struggled to hold back tears, recalling gifts from Murrell that turned out to have been purchased with stolen money.

Sturgeon said: "I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed and I'm not going to apologise for somebody else's crimes."

She has consistently denied any knowledge of Murrell's wrongdoing, committed between 2010 and 2022.

Read more here.

Image source, COPFS

Much has been made of the now-infamous motorhome being parked at Murrell’s mother's then home in Dunfermline.

The £124,000 luxury Niessman and Bischoff motorhome was driven just four miles from Rosyth, before being stored on the driveway.

It is understood Sturgeon’s position remains that she was unable to see the motorhome as it was parked at the side of the building.

The vehicle is now in a Police Scotland car park in Glasgow after being seized during Operation Branchform.

John Brady first met Peter Murrell when they were pupils at Craigmount High School in Edinburgh.

The pair were also in the Boys Brigade, where they got to know future first minister John Swinney.

Murrell had an interest in the independence movement and joined the SNP in his teens.

Brady told a BBC documentary, Peter Murrell: The Man with the Money, that his friend was a talented organiser and said his future role as party chief executive was a “natural fit”.

He said Murrell was an introvert and had “a personality type that lent itself to being in the background”.

Brady didn’t believe the allegations facing Murrell when they were first reported.

He said: “I couldn't, I couldn't, in my wildest dreams, have thought that would happen."

Brady said he was shocked when Murrell pleaded guilty and believes there must be some reason for his behaviour.

He added: “This wasn’t the Peter that I first knew.”

What will happen at the proceeds of crime hearing?published at 11:24 BST

11:24 BST

David Henderson
Scotland news correspondent, at the High Court in Edinburgh

Peter Murrell is heading back to jail but he faces further punishment in the coming months.

And for someone who clearly enjoyed money and the trappings it brought, this could be very painful for him.

He embezzled over £400,000 from the SNP, while he ran its political machine.

So he has profited from this crime. Now he will have to hand over the money to the authorities.

Murrell's proceeds of crime hearing is set to take place on 14 September.

The judge has sweeping powers to confiscate all the funds that Murrell took. This would mean the money goes to the state, to reflect the multi-million pound cost to taxpayers of Operation Branchform.

Or Lord Young could choose to make a compensation order - which would return all the embezzled funds to the victim in this case - the SNP. That's what first minister John Swinney is seeking.

If there's a confiscation order, the SNP would have to sue Murrell for what he owes them.

The courts have already frozen more than £600,000 which belongs to Murrell - two private pension funds and his half share of the family home he shared with Nicola Sturgeon.

So there's plenty of funds to sieze.

Whatever happens, Murrell looks set to lose most - if not all - of his wealth, along with his liberty.

And when he emerges from prison in a few years time, he'll have little or no spare money to spend in retirement.

It's a grim punishment - like something from a work of literature. The greedy man who ends up with next to nothing.

Katie Hunter
BBC Scotland reporter at the High Court in Edinburgh

Peter Murrell is now waiting inside the High Court in Edinburgh for a van to take him back to prison.

As with his arrival, dozens of reporters and camera crews are waiting outside the back of the court.

This is a busy tourist area and some people have been stopping to ask what’s going on here today.

Prosecutors have released 55 images from the investigation into Murrell's embezzlement.

They include new pictures of the £124,550 motorhome parked outside his mother's then home, as well as close-up looks at the luxury bags, watches and pens that Murrell bought illegally.

The pictures were taken by Police Scotland during Operation Branchform, its long-running investigation into the fraud, and shared by prosecutors now the case has concluded.

You can view them here, or search through all the images by using the interactive table below.

The pictures have been separated into seven different categories.

Police Scotland has released clips of officers questioning Peter Murrell following his original arrest.

Detectives ask Murrell what he will say to those who question why SNP cash reserves are so low.

They suggest to Murrell that £19,000 spent on luxury pens alone is an “outrageous amount of money” and ask why the SNP needs to spend that amount of money on luxury pens.

He is also asked if he created a false invoice in order to put the purchase of a Jaguar car through the party’s books as another item.

To each question, Murrell gives the same reply: “No comment”.

Image source, Jeff Overs/BBC

Nicola Sturgeon has released a statement through her lawyer Aamer Anwar, after her estranged husband Peter Murrell was sentenced earlier this morning.

Anwar says Sturgeon remains "angry, hurt and distressed" about the devastating impact of Murrell’s actions on her, his family, friends and the SNP.

The lawyer adds that Sturgeon was deceived and let down by her husband whom she had trusted, and "utterly appalled" by his actions and will never understand why he acted as he did.

The former first minister also "finds it disgraceful and beyond outrageous" that she is being asked to comment on so-called "background" briefings by the police or Crown Office, according to Anwar.

He says: "Whilst anonymous sources have desperately tried to insinuate guilt, it is clear following a two-year gold-plated and robust investigation, Ms Sturgeon was neither charged, prosecuted nor convicted of any offence.

"Ms Sturgeon is innocent of any crime and whilst that might be a source of annoyance for some, it remains a fact that it was Mr Murrell who was charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned for his crimes today."

Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Houston led the force’s four-year investigation into Murrell, codenamed Operation Branchform.

He says the jail sentence is proof that those who “embezzle vast sums of money will not escape justice, regardless of how high a profile or role they may hold”.

ACC Houston says Murrell’s “calculated” crime “proved his disregard for those who placed their trust in him”.

Paul O'Hare
BBC Scotland, at the High Court in Edinburgh

Sean Clerkin - the first person to report concerns about the SNP's funds - claims he was turned away from the first police station where he attempted to file a complaint.

He then attended a second in Barrhead, Renfrewshire, in March 2021 where officers took a statement.

Within five hours he says police were at his door, leading him to believe they were already looking into the SNP’s finances.

Asked if he feels any personal satisfaction, Clerkin says: “Some satisfaction but not complete satisfaction.

“We need to get to the bottom of it. There is a lot more to come out.”

Image source, COPFS

The court previously published 125 pages of documents detailing Murrell's purchases.

BBC Scotland’s data visualisation team has published a searchable database of the items he bought with SNP money from 2010 to 2022.

The largest single transaction, in 2020, was £124,550 for a luxury motorhome paid for entirely with party funds.

Murrell was accused of creating false documents to disguise the payment as a legitimate party expense.

His first major purchase, a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf, was made in early 2016 using £16,489 of SNP money.

He used £57,500 of party cash to buy a Jaguar I-PACE car in 2019, and sold it for £47,378.76 two years later.

Murrell also used SNP funds to purchase two Bremont watches for a total of £9,350, a £4,225 Starwalker World Time fountain pen and a £3,500 Hamilton and Inches silver wine coaster.

Russell Findlay has accused John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon of “enabling” Peter Murrell’s embezzlement from the SNP.

The Scottish Conservative leader said those who raised concerns about the party’s finances had been “warned” about doing so, allowing Murrell’s theft to continue.

He said Murrell got away with a “brazen and large-scale crime spree”.

Findlay added: “It’s no wonder that Swinney is so desperate to thwart an inquiry which would examine many issues, including whether public money was stolen.”

Paul O'Hare
BBC Scotland, at the High Court in Edinburgh

Clerkin says he is looking at three further legal options.

The first is a private prosecution, in England or Scotland, against Nicola Sturgeon - who was told by police last March that she was no longer under investigation.

The second is a class action on behalf of those who donated money to the party.

And the third is to demand a Crown Office review into the decision not to prosecute Sturgeon.

The campaigner also calls on first minister John Swinney to issue a public apology and to offer to compensate those who lost money as a result of the scandal.

Paul O'Hare
BBC Scotland, at the High Court in Edinburgh

Outside court after the sentencing, Clerkin spoke to the media.

Asked if he felt sorry for Murrell, Clerkin says: “I don’t have any sympathy for him whatsoever.

“There are people who have donated money and have since died and their families are left feeling angry.”

The political activist also calls the case into what happened to the SNP’s £667,000 fund for a second independence referendum to be reopened.

He tells the media that former first minister Nicola Sturgeon - who was arrested under Operation Branchform and later released without charge - has questions to answer.

Police Scotland first received a complaint about possible mismanagement of SNP finances in March 2021.

Concerns around the party's independence referendum campaign fund had been raised in online blogs.

But the first person to report the matter was political activist Sean Clerkin.

Officers then received around 12 further reports, mainly from donors via email or online contact forms.

Operation Branchform was set up and officers work closely with specialist economic crime detectives, based at the Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh, to piece together a complex jigsaw.

Murrell's punishment won't end with his releasepublished at 10:30 BST

10:30 BST

David Cowan
Home Affairs Correspondent, BBC Scotland

As a long-term prisoner, Peter Murrell will be eligible for parole halfway through his sentence - that will be after he has served about two-and-a-half years.

Assuming he is of good behaviour, we can expect the parole board to sanction his release at that stage.

It’s also very likely that he could be freed earlier than that under a home detention curfew, with a tag and controls over his movements.

As his lawyer noted this morning, his punishment won’t end there. Peter Murrell’s reputation is in ruins.

One last point - his defence team will be considering whether Lord Young has gone too far. They may well appeal in an attempt to have that jail term reduced.