Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Nicola Sturgeon deleted all Covid Whatsapp messages – and Jason Leitch called deletion ‘a pre-bed ritual’

The Covid-19 Inquiry was told all no Whatsapp messages from Nicola Sturgeon's phone from throughout the pandemic had been retained.

The Covid-19 Inquiry was told all no Whatsapp messages from Nicola Sturgeon's phone from throughout the pandemic had been retained.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Whatsapp messages from throughout the pandemic all appear to have been deleted, the Covid Inquiry has been told.

Counsel to the inquiry Jamie Dawson KC said Ms Sturgeon appeared to have retained “no messages whatsoever”.

Perthshire MSP John Swinney – who served as Deputy First Minister – also had his messages set to auto-delete, the inquiry was informed.

Nicola Sturgeon previously insisted she had “nothing to hide” but did not clarify if any of her messages had been deleted.

‘Bed time ritual’

It comes as a message from National Clinical Director Jason Leitch was revealed where he said deleting his Whatsapp messages had become a “bed time ritual”.

Covid Scotland Jason Leitch
Jason Leitch said deleting his messages was a “bed time ritual”. Image: Supplied

The Scottish Government previously insisted that reports that Mr Leitch deleted every Whatsapp message every day were “not correct”.

The UK Covid inquiry, which is sitting in Scotland, was taking evidence from Lesley Fraser, the government’s director general corporate.

Asked by Mr Dawson about a table which detailed how ministers retained notebooks, messages and other communications.

He said: “Under the box ‘Nicola Sturgeon’, it says that messages were not retained, they were deleted in routine tidying up of inboxes or changes of phones, unable to retrieve messages.

Deleted Covid Whatsapp messages may have been ‘banter’

“What that tends to suggest is at the time that request was made Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland, had retained no messages whatsoever in connection with her management of the pandemic.”

Ms Fraser agreed with his summary, but said some messages may have been deleted because they were “just banter”.

She also said some ministers may have lost messages when phones were  upgraded, or that they may have been deleted to stop Whatsapp becoming “unmanageable”.

A spokesman for the former first minister said she was committed to full transparency.

He said: “Any messages [Nicola Sturgeon] had, she handled and dealt with in line with the Scottish Government’s policies. Nicola has provided a number of written statements to the UK inquiry – totalling hundreds of pages – and welcomes the opportunity to give oral evidence to the inquiry again this month when she will answer all questions put to her.”

‘Even Richard Nixon didn’t destroy Watergate tapes’

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton called on Ms Sturgeon to make a personal statement to parliament explaining what happened to her messages.

“This is rotten to the core. Everyone knew from the start that there would be a public inquiry, so to delete messages on an industrial scale is shameful.

“Nicola Sturgeon made an unambiguous commitment on national television to retain all records and hand them over to judges.

“Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney have chosen to undermine the work of the inquiries and by assuring parliament that they would hand over all material, they have in fact misled it.

“Even Richard Nixon didn’t destroy the Watergate tapes.”

Conversation