Well that was around seven hours of evidence. I’ve done my best to summarise it here. Thanks for following the blog today: Sturgeon said that the legal advice published last night shows that the government did have a stateable case and so it was right to continue with the judicial review. Critics have said it proves the opposite but this was rejected by the first minister who said lawyers are always cautious and they were not advocating abandoning the government’s defence. Sturgeon denied that one of her officials gave the name of one of the complainers against Alex Salmond to one of his aides. Confronted by statements which claimed this happened, she told the committee that that was not what the official had told her; “It did not happen in the way that has been described.” The first minister said one of the names was known by Salmond because he had previously apologised to her and he had identified another by looking through the Scottish government’s Flickr account. She defended telling parliament that she first became aware of the allegations against Salmond at a meeting with her predecessor on 2 April 2018. Sturgeon has been accused of misleading parliament because she had a discussion with Salmond’s former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, on 29 March, and knew Sky News had made inquiries in November 2017 about alleged incidents involving Salmond. Sturgeon said the 2 April meeting was the first time she knew about the specific allegations having been shown a letter by Salmond and this may have “obliterated” her memory of the meeting a few days earlier with Aberdein. Sturgeon told the committee she met Salmond initially because she was told he was distressed and thought he was thinking of resigning and continued to do so out of a sense of “loyalty”. She said she did have doubts as to whether she should have had her final meeting with him on 14 July 2018. The first minister said she never had any intention to intervene in the matter because it would be seen as using her power on Salmond’s behalf and “deeply inappropriate”. She said, because of their past relationship and the nature of the meeting, she may have let Salmond down “too gently” when he wanted her to intervene, giving the false impression to him that she had agreed to do so. Sturgeon claimed she delayed telling civil servants about her meetings with Salmond because she feared it would compromise the independence and confidentiality of the investigation into him. She said she only reported the meetings when it became apparent he was seriously considering legal action against the government. Sturgeon said it was up to James Hamilton, the independent adviser investigating whether she breached the ministerial code, to decided whether she should have reported the meetings earlier. The first minister said there was “zero evidence” of a plot against Salmond. She claimed that messages used to support this allegation had been taken out of context and the allegation was “a million miles” from what was actually happening.