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Hundreds of social media posts sent to MSPs were so abusive and threatening that they were passed to Police Scotland.

The "sobering" findings were revealed by a pilot programme established by the Scottish Parliament in the aftermath of the murder of the MP Sir David Amess, who was killed at his constituency surgery in October 2021.

On average, each MSP who took part in the trial received 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 but abuse generally centred around protected characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation and race.

Just over 8,000 comments in total were deemed to be abusive, with 461 of them determined to rise above the criminal threshold.

Thirty eight MSPs took part in the programme, which ran from from mid-June 2023 to the end of March this year.

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 Scottish Greens, 282 for Labour and 114 for the Lib Dems.

Most were considered "general abuse", but 452 - the second highest category - were deemed to be of a racial or religious nature.

SNP MSP Rona Mackay said the study showed how "prevalent this form of abuse is."

She added: "Nobody should need to put up with any form of abuse whilst doing their job. Such abuse can have a devastating impact on people's lives and is completely unacceptable."

Holyrood's director of operations and digital, Lynsey Hamill, said that although the majority of both criminal and non-criminal abuse was directed towards men, female MSPs often suffered "belittling" and "personal" comments aimed towards them.

She stated: "The trial has revealed the scale of online abuse directed at MSPs, including the number of posts which meet a criminal threshold for reporting. Our findings are sobering."

A spokesman for the Scottish Greens called the figures "truly shocking and said some politicians had to take responsibility for the escalation in abuse.

He said: "The language used by certain politicians about other parties is quite clearly putting their colleagues in danger."

Scottish Conservative MSP Annie Wells said abuse had impacted her work and that the project "paints a stark and deeply concerning picture".

As a result of the findings, the Scottish Parliament has made the trial permanent, and will recruit another security analyst to help accommodate up to 80 MSPs.