A FORMER SNP MP has told a court she had "no idea" thousands of pounds transferred into her account to go towards a campaign group's media training was never paid properly.

A cheque for £2,000 was paid to Natalie McGarry from the Glasgow Regional Association (GRA) of the SNP, of which she was treasurer, secretary and convener.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard the sum was meant for a payment to Enterprise Screen Productions for the group's media training but it was never paid.

Ms McGarry, who is originally from Inverkeithing, told the trial: "I can only say this is the one issue that I have to hold my hands up for, for not following through with properly.

"I had no idea this cheque had not been paid properly."

The 40-year-old, a former Glasgow East MP, is accused of embezzling £21,000 while treasurer of Women for Independence (WFI) between April 23, 2013, and November 30, 2015.

A second charge alleges she took £4,662 between April 9, 2014, and August 2015 when she was treasurer, secretary and convener of the GRA.

Ms McGarry, now of Clarkston, denies both charges.

Defence agent Allan Macleod asked her if the failure to pay the balance of £2,000 was an omission.

She replied: "Yes."

The court heard a family friend of Ms McGarry's worked at Enterprise Screen Productions, which she said was one of the reasons why the campaign group chose to use it for media training.

Mr Macleod continued: "Did you deliberately withhold that money for personal purposes?"

Ms McGarry replied: "Absolutely not. They were family friends, of course I had no intention of not paying them."

At an earlier hearing, she said all of her financial transactions were "spent legitimately" around the time she is accused of embezzling the money.

Ms McGarry said that her father, Brian, had gifted her around £20,000 during her time at WFI and her aunt, Trisha Marwick, a former Scottish Parliament presiding officer, had also given her about £5,000 to help her progress in politics.

The court heard Ms McGarry would receive money regularly – often in cash – from family members to help her with campaigning for the referendum and her General Election bid in 2015.

Her father also paid for the former MP and her partner to holiday in Malaga following the Independence referendum in 2014.

Ms McGarry told the court she was "on my knees" and "shattered" following her hectic schedule but insisted she was able to keep track of her finances and denied mixing her personal spending with that of WFI.

When asked by Mr Macleod how she kept track of which money was for personal expenses and which was for WFI work, she said: "I did have a note of it on my iPhone and iPad. It was stored onto the cloud.

"It was more of a tally than anything, as opposed to anything with receipts."

She added: "I'm also 100 per cent certain in my mind that everything that came into my bank account for WFI was spent legitimately.

"I had a note of what I could and couldn't spend."

However, Ms McGarry said she no longer knew what happened to the iCloud account.

She also told the court she "absolutely did not" deliberately withhold thousands of pounds in donations to charities Perth and Kinross Foodbank and Positive Prisons Positive Futures.

The court saw bank statements which showed £1,565 had been transferred to the foodbank but Ms McGarry said she flagged up to WFI members that the charity had failed to cash it.

This was recorded in the minutes of a WFI meeting from November 2014, which she joined online via Facetime.

The former MP said she did not stay for the whole meeting and denies being present when it was noted she would follow up with the charity.

Ms McGarry also denied withholding a £326 donation from Positive Prisons Positive Futures and said she did not hear back from the charity when she asked for address details to send the cheque.

The court saw emails between her and charity chief executive, Peter White, which appeared to show Mr White sending the details to the wrong address.

The trial, before Sheriff Tom Hughes, continues.