Scottish election 2021: Michelle Thomson wins Falkirk East seat for SNP

A former SNP MP - who left the party after a solicitor linked to her property firm was investigated in connection with allegations of mortgage fraud - has been elected as the MSP for Falkirk East.

Michelle Thomson always denied any wrongdoing and the probe was dropped by the Crown Office because of a lack of evidence.

She re-joined the SNP in 2018.

Ms Thomson has now been elected to Holyrood with 47.4% of the votes.

Labour's Allyson Black came second with 27.9%, and Neil Benny of the Conservatives received 19.6%. The Lib Dems' Paul Rolfe received 2.6%, followed at 2.5% by independent candidate Peter Krykant.

Ms Thomson first came to public prominence as part of Business for Scotland - a pro-independence group - during the lead up to the 2014 independence referendum.

She became SNP MP for Edinburgh West in 2015. However, later that year it emerged a solicitor had been struck off after a series of irregularities in property transactions. Ms Thomson was named by the Sunday Times as his client and the irregularities were referred to the police.

The SNP then issued a statement on Ms Thomson's behalf saying she had resigned the whip and left the party. Ms Thomson later told the BBC that this "was not my choice or my decision".

The party later said it would not endorse her as a candidate in the 2017 general election - a decision Ms Thomson described at the time as "disappointing".

In 2017, the Crown Office said it had received a report concerning five people and that there would be no criminal proceedings because of an absence of "sufficient credible and reliable evidence". Ms Thomson spoke about her delight about being exonerated.

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Ms Thomson, who had been the SNP's spokesperson for business, innovation and skills at Westminster, also sat on the business select committee while she was an MP.

She received widespread praise for a speech she gave during a Commons debate on violence against women in which she told s her personal story about being raped at the age of 14.

Colleagues were moved to tears as she told the chamber she was "not a victim, I'm a survivor".

In 2020, Ms Thomson was selected as the party's candidate for Falkirk East after the SNP incumbent stepped down.

Clarification: This article was amended on 11 May 2021 to clarify details of the police investigation.

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