Nicola Sturgeon has said she feels like she is serving a sentence for a crime she did not commit, as she denied ever “consciously” seeing the motor home bought by her estranged husband with money embezzled from the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Scotland’s former first minister said the luxury camper was parked “round the side” of her mother-in-law’s house and had been recorded in the party’s accounts as “motor vehicles” so its purchase had not rung alarm bells.

In her first media interview since Peter Murrell pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 (€460,000) from the SNP, Sturgeon denied whistleblowers were blocked from flagging concerns, saying their issues were about funds raised to fight a second independence referendum instead.

Sturgeon (55) has consistently denied knowledge of Murrell’s crimes, which spanned more than a decade between 2010 and 2022, and was not charged after a police investigation.

However, she has faced a sceptical Scottish public after it emerged Murrell (61) spent the money on items including a motor home, a Jaguar SUV and a VW Golf, boutique cosmetics, iPads and a pair of Lalique Feuilles salt and pepper grinders worth £2,618.

Sturgeon said she had visited her mother-in-law’s home “less than a handful of times” over the two-year period the motor home was parked in the driveway, and denied she had walked past it to enter the house.

“[Her] house has a driveway in front of the house where we would park our car, and then we would go into the house. Where the motorhome was, was round the side of the house, which is not immediately visible in the way we went into the house,” the former politician told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show.

“It’s between the house and the next-door neighbour’s house. I genuinely have no conscious memory of seeing that motorhome. If I saw it, I would probably have assumed it was the neighbours.

“My mother- and father-in-law were in their mid-80s. It wouldn’t have crossed my mind that it was theirs … and why would it have crossed my mind it was the SNP’s, that Peter had bought it?”

Sturgeon said that in the SNP’s accounts – which she examined as a member of the party’s ruling national executive committee – the motor home was recorded as “motor vehicles”, which did not appear out of place

“We would routinely have buses on the road, branded buses, so the idea that there was expenditure in the SNP accounts on motor vehicles would not in and of itself have been something that looked unusual,” she said.

Sturgeon faced 55 minutes of questions about her estranged husband’s crimes and what had been known about them before the police investigated. In 2021, senior party officials including the then SNP treasurer quit over concerns about the lack of transparency regarding the finances.

“Until probably early 2023, there was no suggestion that what was being looked into in terms of the finances was potential embezzlement,” said Sturgeon. “The issue that was being looked into was whether the £600,000 that had been raised to fund a second independent referendum had been used for election campaigning.

“People were raising concerns in that context. The idea that I tried to stop them is not true … This was a debate about finances all wrapped up in this debate about an independence referendum … These things have become very conflated.”

Sturgeon said she was not going to apologise for someone else’s crimes.

“For my own sake, but for the sake of people out there, a lot of women who end up finding themselves blamed for the actions of the men in their lives, I’m not going to contribute to that kind of sense that I am responsible for somebody else’s crimes,” she said.

“I will take responsibility for the things I do, the decisions I make. I’m sitting here with you right now, answering questions because I believe strongly in that accountability. But I am not responsible for the crimes that my former husband committed and I’m not going to apologise for somebody else’s crimes.”

Sturgeon, however, said she had made an error of judgment by keeping Murrell on as SNP chief executive when she become party leader in November 2014, although she said his crimes had already been going on for years. “It doesn’t make me responsible for the fact that he used the position he was in to lie and deceive and mislead and cover his tracks to commit a crime,” she said.

She has previously said she had been “completely cleared and exonerated” by police and that she had been lied to by Murrell. On Sunday, Sturgeon said he had “perpetrated a crime on the SNP”, adding: “By definition, that included me as the party leader.”

“He misled. He deceived. He is serving and will be serving a sentence for a crime he committed. I’m out here feeling as if I’m serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit.”

Sturgeon became visibly emotional when speaking about a pendant from Shetland, costing more than £400, that had been given to her by Murrell but which later turned out to have been paid for with embezzled funds. “I loved that necklace and I wore it a lot,” she said.

“The idea that I would have gone about wearing things that I had known were anything other than what they were presented as, a gift from my husband, to then find out that these were gifts given to me that he’d bought with the party’s money causes a level of pain, bewilderment.

“I don’t know, I just … I’m not sure. I’m going to try. I am just not sure I will ever properly come to terms with that.”

Murrell will be sentenced in June, after two UK parliamentary byelections the SNP is defending: one in Aberdeen South and another in Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.

The SNP has faced calls for an independent inquiry into its finances. Sturgeon was Scotland’s first minister from 2014 to 2023 while Murrell served as the party’s chief executive from 2001 to 2023.