Almost 9,400 hate crimes have been reported to police since a controversial act was introduced a month ago — with only 0.6 per cent deemed legitimate.
While legislation was already in place against stirring up racial hatred, the hate crime act expanded such protections to other groups, including the elderly, the disabled and LGBT people in Scotland.
It sparked a deluge of reports to police in its first week, with 7,000 complaints being made online, which dropped to 390 in the week to April 21, according to the latest figures — about an 80 per cent fall on the previous week.
As of Sunday, there were about 9,400 online hate crime reports since the act was introduced. Of these, 616 have been recorded by officers
