Police probe abusive posts sent to MSPs

Apilot programme has unveiled the level of abuse directed at MSPs with almost 500 posts passed to Police Scotland.

After the death of MP Sir David Amess, the Scottish Parliament set about ensuring the safety of elected members, including increasing their level of security.

A programme set up last year has shown that, for the 38 participating MSPs, 461 threats were deemed serious enough to be passed to Police Scotland.

On average, each MSP was on the receiving end of 12 abusive posts which were reported to police in less than a year.

It is understood there were no direct threats during the trial period – which ran from mid-June last year to the end of March – but abuse generally centred around protected characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation and race.

In total, the tool used by Holyrood officials found almost a quarter of a million – 245,420 – online comments which met the search criteria for threatening or abusive language but, following an investigation by a security analyst, just over 8,000 were deemed to be abusive.

Some 7,661 comments were deemed abusive but did not rise above the criminal threshold.

Of those treated as abusive or threatening, the vast majority – 6,621 – were directed towards members of the SNP, while 592 were directed at Scottish Tory MSPs, 501 towards the Greens, 282 for Labour and 114 for the Lib Dems.

The majority of both the criminal or non-criminal abuse was directed towards men, but according to Holyrood’s director of operations and digital Lynsey Hamill, the picture is more “nuanced” than the figures suggest.

“Our search terms are geared towards language and phrases that are physically threatening or directed towards protected characteristics,” she said in an email to MSPs.

“Often, however, we’ll see abuse of female MSPs that is belittling, or of a personal nature, but is not necessarily physically threatening.”

With a general election expected this year, as well as international incidents like the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the US election, Holyrood officials expect it to be “highly likely we will see a rise in online content that is concerning”.

As such, the Scottish Parliament has made the trial permanent.

SNP MSP Rona Mackay welcomed the seriousness with which Holyrood officials treated the safety of elected members.

A spokesman for the Scottish Greens said: “It’s not just social media and sections of the press pouring fuel on this fire.

“The language used by certain politicians about other parties is quite clearly putting their colleagues in danger.”

Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells – who said abuse has impacted on her work – said the project “paints a stark and deeply concerning picture”.

REVIEW: Following the death of Sir David Amess, inset, security levels have increased.