A senior police officer says the investigation into Peter Murrell, described as the former SNP chief, took years to complete partly because the party’s accounts were difficult to analyze. The officer attributes the complexity to what is described as a hard-to-unpick accounts system, which slowed efforts to establish the sequence of events and scrutinize financial records. The accounts challenge is presented as one factor among others contributing to the length of the probe, rather than as the sole reason. Across reporting, the focus remains on how investigators had to work through the SNP’s internal financial systems to determine what occurred and how it was handled. The comments are framed as an explanation for delays in concluding the inquiry, while still relating to the broader question of fraud allegations involving Murrell. The reports do not provide additional specific technical details in the supplied material about the accounting system or the exact steps taken by police, but they consistently link the extended investigation timeline to the difficulty of disentangling the party’s records.