WHEN Natalie McGarry made a bid to be one of the SNP’s candidates in the 2014 European elections she told party members that she had “studied law at university and went on to further study international government diplomacy”.
She claimed to have worked in local government, in policy advisory roles.
Other biographies penned by the prospective politician said she had worked in human resources and as a community officer for unemployed parents.
There was also a stint as a holiday rep in Cyrpus, some work for a charity helping young people, and as a policy adviser in a third sector organisation.
While she may have studied law at Aberdeen University, she never graduated. She dropped out following a family tragedy.
It’s not clear where she studied international government diplomacy. It doesn’t appear to be a course offered by any college or university anywhere in the UK. There is also no record of which companies or charities employed McGarry.
Read more: Former SNP MP sentenced to two years in prison for embezzlement
During her trial, Glasgow Sheriff Court heard that she spent much of the first half of the last decade unemployed, being helped out financially by her family.
McGarry’s relationship with the truth is complex.
On May 12, 2022, the majority of a jury of her peers decided they didn’t believe her.
The verdict is a vindication of the women who trusted McGarry to tell the truth and went to the police when it became abundantly clear she hadn’t.
Women for Independence (WFI) was set up in 2012 in a bid to close the gender gap ahead of the referendum, but also as antidote to the maleness of the official campaign
Founding members included Jeane Freeman, a former special adviser to Jack McConnell, who would, of course, ultimately go on to be the health minister in the Scottish Government.
Former Scottish Socialist Party MSP Carolyn Leckie, former SNP candidate Isobel Lindsay, and McGarry were all there from the beginning too.
“We came together because a group of us arrived at the conclusion, individually, that women’s voices were missing from both sides of the referendum debate,” she told The Sunday Herald.
It was, Ms Freeman told Glasgow Sheriff Court six weeks ago, an organisation “founded on trust”.
Read more: Jeane Freeman 'vindicated' over Natalie McGarry verdict
McGarry became WFI’s treasurer on April 26, 2013, holding the role until November 30, 2015.
She came from solid SNP stock. Her mother, Alice McGarry, was a councillor in Fife for three decades. Her aunt is Tricia Marwick, the former Holyrood presiding officer.
During the referendum her profile grew and grew.
She had appear regularly at events, and debates, frequently appearing on TV or in print, speaking on behalf of WFI or the campaign for independence.
Even after the vote, McGarry was still a significant presence.
She was the convenor of the SNP’s Glasgow Regional Association, and was a shoo-in for selection at the 2015 General Election, taking on, and ultimately beating Labour’s Margaret Curran in Glasgow East.
All the while, her colleagues in WFI were becoming increasingly alarmed at their treasurer’s failure to reply to emails asking for details of exactly how much money they had in their accounts.
In the run-up to the 2014 referendum, WFI had no formal structures, no constitution and no officers.
They had a mailing list of about 2,000 people, and about 15-20 active groups.
When the organisation formalised in March 2015, elected a national council and adopted a constitution, starting life with around 1000 members, and about 40 – 50 groups officially affiliating, those questions to the treasurer only got more urgent.
McGarry’s brief time as an MP was often mired in controversy. She was forced to pay £10,000 to Alastair Cameron, the director of Scotland in Union, after she described him as a “holocaust denier”.
She was also briefly detained by Turkish security forces less than 80 miles from the Syrian border after she took out her phone at a security check point.
Then there was also a run-in with JK Rowling. McGarry had to apologise for “any misguided inference” that the Harry Potter author supported misogyny or abuse.
It was her second time in court on these charges. The ex-MP initially pleaded guilty early on in her initial trial in late 2019, though she later, unsuccessfully, tried to change her plea.
She was sentenced to 18 months but had the verdict overturned after a few days after appeal judges ruled that she had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Today McGarry was sentenced to two years in prison.
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