Salmond may have leaked sexual misconduct inquiry details, claims Sturgeon

Alex Salmond may have leaked details about an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Nicola Sturgeon has claimed.

In an excerpt of her new memoir, Frankly, published by The Times, Sturgeon insisted she was not the one who had leaked the outcome of the Scottish government investigation into her predecessor as first minister to the press.

She said: “It crossed my mind many times that it might have been Alex himself or someone acting on his behalf.

“To those with no experience of the dark arts of media manipulation, I know this will sound preposterous. However, in many ways it would have been classic Alex.

“I had known him to make these kinds of calculations in the past. If there is damaging information certain to emerge about you and there is nothing you can do to stop it, get it out in a way that gives you the best chance of controlling the narrative.”

Salmond, who died last year, was investigated by the Scottish government in 2018 after two women made allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

The findings of that investigation were leaked to The Daily Record on the day before they were due to be published, prompting Salmond to launch a judicial review of the handling of the inquiry.

The Scottish government initially defended the judicial review, before dropping its defence.

But a separate police investigation resulted in a criminal trial in 2020 in which Salmond was cleared of all 14 charges, being found not guilty on 12 counts while prosecutors withdrew another charge and one was found not proven.

The next year Salmond, who had been Scottish first minister between 2007 and 2014 as leader of the SNP, founded the pro-independence Alba Party.

In her memoir, Sturgeon said Salmond had informed her that he was being investigated in April 2018 and initially appeared to be “upset and mortified” before he “became cold”.

Claiming he “effectively admitted the substance of one of the complaints, but claimed that it had been a ‘misunderstanding’”, Sturgeon said it had been “evident” that Salmond “wanted me to intervene” to stop or divert the investigation.

She added that her refusal to do so turned him against her and “made the break-up of one of the most successful partnerships in modern British politics all but inevitable”.

Sturgeon also accused Salmond of attempting to “cast himself as the victim” and being “prepared to traumatise, time and again, the women at the centre of it all”.

She said: “A conspiracy against Alex would have needed a number of women deciding to concoct false allegations, without any obvious motive for doing so.

“It would then have required criminal collusion between them, senior ministers and civil servants, the police and the Crown.

“That is what he was alleging. The ‘conspiracy’ was a fabrication, the invention of a man who wasn’t prepared to reflect honestly on his own conduct.”

In other extracts, published on Friday, Sturgeon discussed her arrest in 2023, describing it as “mental torture”, her miscarriage in 2010 and her sexuality.

Nicola Sturgeon served as Scottish first minister between 2014 and 2023. Her memoir, Frankly, will be published on Thursday.