Former Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has been cleared of committing a crime after he sent 270 messages to a teenage boy.
Police Scotland has completed an investigation into messages sent by Mackay via Instagram and Facebook to the 16-year-old boy.
Officers concluded that a criminal offence did not take place.
Mackay resigned on the eve of the Scottish budget statement after the online conversations between him and the boy were published by the Scottish Sun.
The Renfrewshire North and West MSP reportedly called the boy “cute”, invited him to events and asked that their conversations be kept secret.
They continued even after the boy revealed he was still in school, and then later said he was 16. Many were ignored by the teenager.
A Police Scotland spokesperson told The Herald: "No report of criminality has been made to Police Scotland, however, we have carried out enquiries and assessed all of the available information.
"Based on this there is nothing to suggest that an offence has been committed.
"If anyone has any further information then they should contact Police Scotland on 101, or, in an emergency 999."
The teenager was later reported as telling the Scottish Sun: “I was happy to speak to the police and will tell them everything that happened.
“I didn’t think what he was doing was a crime but I knew it was wrong and should be highlighted.”
The 42-year-old has not been seen at Parliament or attended constituency surgeries since the story emerged on February 5.
He was also suspended by the SNP but remains an MSP.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article