Newly elected MSP Kirsten Osward handpicked by Swinney for top team despite involvement in raft of SNP scandals.
John Swinney’s appointment of a woman embroiled in a catalogue of scandals to a top ministerial job has been slammed as “disgusting and insulting” by whistleblowers.
Newly elected MSP Kirsten Oswald was given the role of minister for victims and community safety by the First Minister shortly after the Nationalists won May’s Holyrood election.
But we can reveal that ex-SNP deputy Westminster leader Oswald, 53, was at the heart of multiple claims of whistleblowers being shut down and bullied.
- As chair of party’s ruling body she presided over a pile-on against fellow NEC member Allison Graham when she tried to sound the alarm on SNP finances.
- At Westminster she shut down a young party worker who complained about sexual harassment by ex-MP Patrick Grady.
- Prior to becoming an MP, she was head of HR at South Lanarkshire College as a shocking scandal around fraud, theft and systematic bullying allegations began to unfold.
Graham, who resigned from the SNP’s Finance and Audit Committee over accounting concerns in 2021, has said she is “absolutely disgusted” at Oswald’s appointment.
She told the Sunday Mail: “She is supposed to be the ‘victims’ minister’ and whistleblowers have got to have confidence that she has their back.
“But she has demonstrated that her intent was to close things down and to allow a vile attack. She not only didn’t step in, she joined in.
“It’s an absolutely appalling judgment call from John Swinney. From a leadership point of view, you would distance yourself from that NEC. You would not promote them and bring them into your government.
“He’s telling everybody he solved the problem while surrounding himself with the ones that caused it.”
Graham, a business analyst, was part of a wave of reforming candidates elected to the SNP’s ruling committee in 2020 to improve governance and transparency.
Former treasurer Douglas Chapman asked her and two others, Cynthia Guthrie and former Edinburgh Lord Provost Frank Ross, to join the party’s Finance and Audit Committee (FAC).
But she has told how she was blocked by embezzler CEO Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband, from scrutinising SNP finances at every turn. It led the trio to resign from the FAC in March 2021, followed two months later by ex-MPs Chapman and Joanna Cherry quitting the NEC.
Graham wanted their resignations properly recorded so read out their statement at an infamous virtual NEC meeting attended by Oswald, Nicola Sturgeon and others – and was met by a vicious pile-on.
After former Highland councillor Ian Cockburn launched a furious rant against Allison for reading the statement out, Sturgeon posted in the group chat, “Well said, Ian.”
Other NEC members then “clambered over themselves” to slam Graham, with Heather Anderson. who is also now an SNP MSP, suggesting a “new hashtag I’mwithIan”.
When Graham tried to defend herself, saying she had only sent the written statement to Oswald, the future minister bit back: “Well Alison you have just read it out to the whole NEC so that is neither here not there [sic].”
Sturgeon then spoke on the call angrily warning officials to be “very careful” suggesting any problems with party finances in bombshell footage first revealed by the Sunday Mail.
It came two months before police began their five-year Operation Branchform probe into SNP finances, which led to Murrell’s conviction for embezzling £400,000 from the party. On Tuesday, he was jailed for five years.
Oswald then failed to properly record the resignation statement in the official minutes from the meeting.
Allison said: “It was like a fight club – what happens in the NEC stays in the NEC. The way Kirsten spoke to me was as if she was slapping me across the knees.
“Saying ‘that’s neither here nor there’ to three members of your audit committee basically saying there’s a problem with the CEO – that was her response?
“Now Nicola is saying she wasn’t told about the embezzlement. Well, we weren’t Columbo.
“This was the First Minister of Scotland. We told the NEC there was a problem and it was their job to address it. They should have authorised a forensic accountant to come in and demonstrate there wasn’t a problem if they thought there wasn’t.
“That’s what the police did. Everything the police did in May, the SNP could have done in March – and they would have saved the public purse £2million out of a police investigation.
“They didn’t just allow Peter to continue his crimes, they emboldened him.
“Because he had just watched as somebody had finally clocked on – and then everybody else protected him. He was bulletproof, he was Teflon at that point.”
She added: “Nicola was clearly content that Kirsten would manage the meetings the way she wanted them to be managed. It was completely controlling and toxic.
“On the finances, the behaviour was so bizarre that it was a clarion call which said there’s something seriously wrong here and we couldn’t understand why nobody else was doing anything about it.
“I’ve worked in governance and strategy and I was genuinely appalled. It was like pulling the curtain back and finding the organisation which runs the government was held together by sticky-back plastic and pipecleaners.”
Caroline McAllister, who was SNP women’s convener at the time, said the bullying she witnessed was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for her as she quit shortly afterwards.
She said: “I wasn’t prepared at all for it. I was concerned about the contents of Allison’s statement, but the response afterwards really shocked me. If I’m really honest, it left me reeling.
“It was just the force of verbal aggression aimed at an elected official who had raised very worrying concerns, but in a very calm and measured way.
“I was an SNP councillor and I’ve sat in many committees and boards, and that level of aggression would not be tolerated. I’ve never operated within such a toxic environment.
“When I saw the bullying of Allison, I just thought, I can’t be party to this anymore. It’s a regret I will always carry with me that I didn’t interject in Allison’s defence.”
McAllister also highlighted the mistreatment of an SNP Westminster staffer who raised a complaint against shamed former MP Patrick Grady.
She said: “What’s really distressing and disgraceful is John Swinney’s attitude and the fact that Kirsten Oswald is sat in that Parliament.
“It’s almost like she’s got a reward for being a good little gatekeeper. And then to make her the minister for victims is just crass.
“I couldn’t help but think that was John signalling to the public, I really don’t care what you think. I don’t care that Kirsten Oswald has this terrible reputation.
“It wasn’t just the fact that she allowed the attack on Allison and joined in the pile-on.
“She’s also caught up in the scandal involving Patrick Grady. Jordan Linden was another one that was swept under the carpet. Kirsten Oswald is no friend to victims.”
It emerged in 2022 that Oswald threatened disciplinary action against the young staffer who raised complaints about Grady. The victim was just 19 when the then-SNP chief whip harassed him at a night out in 2016.
Ian Blackford, the SNP Commons leader at the time, tried to deal with the incident informally in 2018 when told about it.
Three years later Ms Oswald, then Blackford’s deputy, warned the staffer he could be sanctioned if he did not “desist”. The man’s parliament email account was also locked. A year later Commons sleaze watchdogs found Grady had touched him inappropriately.
McAllister added: “It was utterly disgraceful to me the way that young man was treated after Patrick Grady’s sexual harassment.
“My heart goes out to him. He had the courage to stand up and then he was absolutely ostracised and isolated.”
Oswald was MP for East Renfrewshire from 2015 to 2017, then again from 2019 to 2024 where she lost her Westminster seat to Labour.
She was selected as the SNP’s candidate for Eastwood at Holyrood this year, defeating ex-Tory leader Jackson Carlaw to gain the seat in the election on May 7. Just two weeks later, Swinney appointed her to his ministerial team.
Oswald has also never answered for what she knew of a historic fraud and bullying scandal that engulfed South Lanarkshire College, involving claims of staff using teaching materials and stolen equipment to remodel their homes.
She was the college’s HR boss for 12 years up to getting elected to Westminster in 2015. Whistleblower concerns around theft and fraud first emerged in 2013.
Former Tory-turned-Reform MSP Graham Simpson, who spoke out about the college scandal at the time, said: “Kirsten Oswald has faced serious questions for years. Her name has repeatedly surfaced in connection with some of the SNP’s most damaging controversies, yet many of those questions remain unanswered.
“It is astonishing that someone who has faced allegations of shielding the SNP establishment from scrutiny has been handed responsibility for victims and community safety.“John Swinney must explain why he believes this appointment is appropriate. Now that Ms Oswald is at the heart of the SNP government, she must address these concerns directly with a full public statement.“Victims and whistleblowers deserve answers, transparency and accountability. Not another SNP cover up.”
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “There remain serious concerns about Kirsten Oswald’s handling of complaints made about Patrick Grady while they were both SNP MPs.
“However, rather than addressing these concerns, John Swinney has not only chosen to stand by her during the campaign, he has now appointed her as a minister. What makes it even worse is that Swinney has named her as a minister for victims. This is the ultimate insult to victims.
“How can any victim of heinous wrongdoing have any faith in someone who attempted to silence the person who made complaints to her about Patrick Grady and shut down whistleblowers raising concerns over Murrell and SNP finances.
“Swinney has shown, yet again, his appalling judgement, and victims deserve better. He must urgently explain why he thought that Oswald was the right person for this position, and set out whether he is content with how she handled the complaints about Grady and the NEC whistleblowers.”
An SNP spokeswoman said: “These allegations are utterly inaccurate.“As business convener, Kirsten Oswald was committed to transparency and she took many steps to improve accountability and governance within the SNP.“The criminal wrongdoing of Peter Murrell was uncovered by a complex and extensive Police investigation years after the events in question. The SNP was the victim of that wrongdoing.”
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