Nicola Sturgeon news – live: Scottish first minister says Salmond’s ‘plot’ claim is ‘absurd’

Scottish Labour MSP Jackie Baillie has asked the first minister why no one in government has resigned over the botched handling of the Salmond investigation.

Nicola Sturgeon responded by saying that the situation was horrendous for everyone and by admitting that “people got things wrong”.

Nicola Sturgeon has told MSPs: “I never wanted to face a situation where a man I revered – had revered – since I was 20, probably younger than that, was facing serious allegations of sexual misconduct.

“My conduct in all of this is rightly under scrutiny, I have no complaint about that.

“But I think it would have been deeply wrong for me to have intervened in any way, on behalf of Alex Salmond, to try to engineer the outcome he wanted.”

Scotland’s first minister has reiterated that it would have been “deeply inappropriate” for her to intervene on behalf of her former friend Alex Salmond.

Nicola Sturgeon said she was excluded from the investigation as part of the procedure and that it would have been an abuse of her power to influence things in favour of Mr Salmond.

He was facing claims of “serious sexual misconduct,” she reminded the inquiry.

The first minister added that it was not her decision not to go to arbitration in the case.

Nicola Sturgeon has hit out at the suggestion that lawyers told the government before 11 December that it would lose a court case brought by Alex Salmond.

Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said that legal advise, published on Tuesday night, showed this information was shared by 6 December “if not before”.

“You were risking public funds in continuing with the action,” he added.

Ms Sturgeon replied: “I think every time a government defends a legal action it is risking public funds, because there is never a guarantee you are going to be successful.”

“My understanding is that much of what went really wrong in the case, catastrophically wrong… was in that later stage of December, when it became clear, I believe not intentionally, that there was information and material that had not hitherto been disclosed.”

“Up until as late as December 11 it was the opinion of law officers we had a stateable case with credible arguments,” she added.

The committee hearing has stopped for lunch.

Proceedings will start up again at 2pm.

Tory MSP Murdo Fraser asked Nicola Sturgeon whether the government conceded the judicial review only after its junior and senior counsel threatened to resign, something which Alex Salmond has alleged.

In response, the first minister said: “That’s not my understanding.”

Before this, she said: “The charge that has been made against me is that I wilfully allowed a judicial review to proceed against the legal advice, therefore I broke the ministerial code.

“With respect, as you now know, I was acting in accordance with the views of the law officers, not against.”

She later added that the government would not have leant on the counsel to proceed in an “unstateable” case and that it had chosen to concede of its own volition.

Mr Salmond was awarded £512,000 towards his legal fees after winning the review.

As the BBC’s Nick Eardley notes, there are four sections to the committee’s investigation.

After the first four hours of today’s hearing, only two of these have been covered.

Nicola Sturgeon said she was concerned about how the committee’s work may draw the attention away from the complainants.

She said: “One of the genuine worries I have here is the extent to which this whole process has side-lined and silenced the voice of the complainers and that’s not what anybody on this committee has wanted or tried to do.

“It’s not for me to tell you how to do your work, and it’s certainly not, but if you want to know what the complainers thought (about the process of dealing with their allegations) perhaps trying to speak to them would be a better way than trying to get me to second-guess their views.”

Nicola Sturgeon insisted she had seen “nothing that comes within a million miles” of backing up claims that Mr Salmond was the victim of a conspiracy within the SNP.

Speaking about messages sent by various people within the party, she said they showed “people supporting each other, people talking to each other”.

She added there was “a bit of gossip about what was going on”, saying: “This was a massive thing for the SNP, particularly for people who had worked closely with him.”

But she stressed that people in the SNP were co-operating with police, saying: “Some of what has been misrepresented as trying to find or concoct evidence is actually people co-operating with the police at their request.

“I have seen nothing that comes within a million miles of backing up that central assertion Alex was making, that there was some kind of co-ordinated attempt, for whatever motive, and the motive seems to be on shifting sands as well, I have seen nothing that comes within a million miles of demonstrating that.”

Nicola Sturgeon said it would have been an “egregious” breach of her position had she acceded to Alex Salmond‘s request for her to intervene following complaints against him.

The First Minister told the committee: “The issue for me … was is it appropriate for me to intervene in the process, and I don’t think it was.

“Had I done so I think I would have been facing serious criticism on that score as well.

“I don’t think anybody around this table would be sitting here patting me on the back had I sought to intervene and influence the course of that procedure.”

She added: “Had I intervened … I would have felt I was effectively colluding with him to try to thwart the direction and the natural course of the investigation. and I think that would have been a heinous, egregious breach of my position.”