Clash: Nicola Sturgeon to speak to Michelle Thomson directly. PA

Nicola Sturgeon has described a now dropped police investigation into former SNP MP Michelle Thomson's business dealings as "a difficult situation".

The former Edinburgh West member resigned from the party in 2015 after it emerged Police Scotland were investigating alleged fraud surrounding property transactions involving her company M&F Property Solutions.

On Tuesday, the Crown Office said it was dropping the case due to an "absence of sufficient credible and reliable evidence".

Sturgeon responded on Monday to comments Thomson made in the Sunday Herald, in which she claimed the First Minister "panicked" about the allegations.


Thomson also claimed she was pressured into resigning by senior SNP figures including the now finance secretary Derek Mackay.

Sturgeon told STV News: "It was a difficult situation for everybody. I did not ask to be in a situation where one of my newly elected MPs was facing serious allegations.

"Clearly, she would have preferred not to be in that situation. She has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Now it is about moving on. She has said, I understand, she wants to come back into the SNP.

"First and foremost that is something we would discuss directly with her not through the media."

Thomson was unable to stand again for the party in this year's general election as only party members are allowed to be a candidate.


When she resigned from the SNP Westminster group her party membership was automatically suspended.

The ex-MP also criticised the fact Sturgeon is married to the pro-independence party's chief executive Peter Murrell.

She said: "I would just say there is no large other organisation where that is the position.

"There are good reasons why you don't have a married couple at the centre of a large organisation."