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The leader of the Scottish Tory Party has revealed he has had a "credible" death threat made against him.

Speaking at the party's spring conference in Glasgow, Douglas Ross spoke about death threats as he told how politicians could suffer "extremely vicious" abuse online.

In one instance he had to phone his wife at work to tell her a "credible" threat had been made against him.

He said police acted "very quickly" to deal with the situation.

Mr Ross said he quickly alerted his wife Krystle, a police sergeant, before she saw details of it on her work computer.

"Politicians have to accept we get a fair share of criticism, people are entitled to do that," he said during a question and answer session at the conference.

But Mr Ross, MP for Moray and an MSP for the Highlands and Islands region, added: "These are words and phrases they would never say to you in person, they would never come up to you and say what they say on social media to your face."

'Credible threats'

He added that the "protection" of being behind a keyboard allowed social media users "to get away with far too much."

The politician said his sons were still too young to be aware of the abuse he got, but it affected his wife.

Mr Ross said: "One of the particular death threats I got in Moray was acted upon very quickly by our local chief inspector.

"I've got a process, all MPs and MSPs have a process they go through, when they get credible threats like that.

"Also I had to then phone Krystle, she was on duty at the time as a sergeant. This would come up on her computer screen that the local MP has a death threat against him, and she happens to be married to him."

Mr Ross married wife Krystle in 2015, the couple have two sons.