POLICE have found no evidence that Yes Scotland's emails were illegally hacked following a probe into the allegations.

The national force made the announcement yesterday, three months after its officers were called in by Blair Jenkins, the pro-independence group's chief executive, to investigate.

Mr Jenkins had said at the time the group's email accounts were attacked by "a force or forces unknown" and described it as an assault on democracy that had disrupted the campaign.

Detective Superintendent Steven Wilson said in a statement: "Police ­Scotland has investigated a complaint regarding unauthorised access to a private email account where communications with Yes Scotland were illegally accessed.

"Inquiries to date have revealed no indication the access of this material was the primary motive of the culprit. Yes Scotland has assisted Police Scotland at every stage of the inquiry, which continues in relation to the offence committed against the private individual."

The Better Together campaign accused the Yes campaign of wasting police time. A spokesman said: "Under serious pressure over the damaging allegations contained in the leaked emails, the First Minister implied media involvement in hacking the email accounts of the independence campaign and threatened serious repercussions for the media. Blair Jenkins then claimed they had been subject of a sinister criminal attack.

"The reality is this was a deliberate and cynical attempt to deflect attention away from the fact the Yes campaign had been caught deceiving Scots. This has been an extraordinary waste of police time."

Mr Jenkins had said the alleged ­hacking shut down the IT system and had an impact on the campaign. Speaking in August, he said: "People should be in no doubt this is a very serious attack not just on the campaign for Scottish independence, this is a very serious assault on democracy."

The claims coincided with ­revelations that constitutional expert Dr Elliot Bulmer had been paid by Yes Scotland following an article he wrote for The Herald. The article had been accepted in good faith.

A Yes Scotland spokesman stressed the inquiry was still continuing into the "illegal hacking of a personal email account of a senior member of the Yes Scotland team". He added: "This account was being used for Yes Scotland business and there is no dispute the information being unlawfully accessed from it related directly to Yes Scotland. Indeed, the hacker used information hacked from this account to make direct contact with members of the Yes Scotland Advisory Board."