UK Covid inquiry: Nicola Sturgeon's Covid WhatsApp messages 'all deleted'

All Nicola Sturgeon's WhatsApp messages during the pandemic appear to have been deleted, the Covid inquiry has heard.

Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, said the former first minister appeared to "have retained no messages whatsoever".

The hearing in Edinburgh was also told that her deputy John Swinney's WhatsApp messaging was set to auto-delete.

Ms Sturgeon has previously said she has "nothing to hide" but not clarified if her WhatsApp messaged were deleted.

The UK Covid inquiry, which is sitting in Scotland for three weeks, was taking evidence from senior civil servant Lesley Fraser, director general corporate at the Scottish government.

Ms Fraser said relatively new technologies such as Zoom were being used during the pandemic and that records may not have been retained in the way they might be now, when a digital footprint is more likely to be created.

Mr Dawson then questioned her about a table supplied by the Scottish government last October summarising ministers' use of notebooks, retention of messages and other forms of communication.

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.

"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 replied: "That's what that indicates to me."

She also confirmed that the Scottish government had been unable to supply Ms Sturgeon's messages from its corporate record.

The documents indicated that former Deputy First Minister John Swinney's messages were either deleted manually or by using the app's auto-delete function.

Ms Fraser said ministers may have managed their messages involving their private offices in such a way in order to stop the messaging becoming "unmanageable".

She said some messages were simply "banter" that did not need to be retained, and others may have been lost when phones were upgraded.