Nicola Sturgeon remembers her home being raided by police

       Nicola Sturgeon has spoken of her "horror, upset and shame" at her house being raided by police. The former Scottish first minister became emotional as she recalled officers searching the home she shared with husband Peter Murrell in April 2023 and his arrest as part of a probe into the SNP's finances.

       In an interview with ITV News, she said: "I don't really have a clear memory of that because I think I'd gone upstairs to get myself ready. I genuinely don't know whether the fact that I don't have a clear image of that in my head is because I didn't witness it or that I have kind of somehow blocked it out.

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       "It wasn't until I got to mum and dad's that I saw the pictures of my house looking like a murder scene, effectively.

       "It was just, sorry, I'm not really, I'm just working out ... it's really hard to articulate how I felt that day.

       "I had this sense of horror and upset and the kind of shame of it all."

       She called her own arrest in June 2023 "horrific" and “the worst day of her life".

       Ms Sturgeon was cleared of all charges, but her husband, a former SNP chief executive whom she split from earlier this year, was charged with embezzlement.

       Elsewhere during the interview ahead of the publication of her memoir Frankly, Ms Sturgeon admitted that she still "in some way" misses her mentor Alex Salmond, who died last October.

       Nicola Sturgeon speaks in a new ITV News interview (Image: ITV News)

       The pair's relationship broke down after sexual misconduct allegations against him emerged, which he was later cleared of.

       She said: "Even today I still miss him in some way, the person that I used to know and the relationship we used to have.

       "But I thought I had made my peace with it, that I'd got to a point where I felt nothing.

       "And then I got a call to tell me that Alex Salmond had died. I started crying on the phone and I just was hit by this wave of grief ... and it was complicated because obviously we weren't just no longer friends, we were political enemies.

       "There was no prospect I was going to be able to go to his funeral or anything like that, and it was a kind of strange, strange feeling."

       Ms Sturgeon was also asked about branding Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as "odious" in her memoir.

       She said: "This is my impression, other people might have a different view of him. He just comes across as somebody who's got a very, very fragile ego.

       "Somebody who's not particularly comfortable, particularly around women."

       And the ex-SNP leader refused to rule out having a relationship with a woman following the breakdown of her marriage.

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