POLICE Scotland's search of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell's house is continuing with officers spotted outside holding gardening equipment.
Forensic teams have also been spotted combing through the couple's home as part of the police’s probe into allegations around the SNP’s finances.
Mr Murrell was arrested early on Wednesday morning “as a suspect in connection with the ongoing investigation”.
He has not been charged.
As part of the investigation the force carried out searches at the home Mr Murrell shares with his wife, the former first minister of Scotland.
SNP HQ in Edinburgh’s Jackson’s Entry was also searched.
Ms Sturgeon has not been seen today. Neighbours said she left at 8.10am, around 20 minutes before police arrived.
Pictures taken of the search at her home showed officers looking through storage units, and lifting the tarpaulin covering the BBQ in the back garden.
There were fingertip searches over the fence, and officers coming in and out the house. One officer was pictured with an Amazon box, another walked about with an open Macbook.
🔔 Get unlimited access to The Herald with our Digital Pack and save over 20% annually
👉 Click here to sign up for this offer
They were all followed by an official police photographer, documenting everything.
Police tape marked out a cordon around the house, while a forensic tent was erected on the front lawn.
In Edinburgh, there were four police vans outside the party HQ, just off the Royal Mile, a few minutes walk away from the Scottish Parliament, and close to the BBC’s Edinburgh studios.
They left at about 2.30pm, taking equipment and boxes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article