Almost £400,000 of taxpayers' money has been spent pushing the SNP's hate crime laws.

The advertising campaign focused on how words can hurt. Photo: Geoff J. Mitchell/Getty Images

Almost £400,000 of taxpayers' tax money has been spent promoting the Scottish National Party's new hate crime laws.

Advertising campaign focusing on The new law is widely believed to have backfired after Police Scotland was inundated with more than 7,000 complaints in the first week after the laws took effect, of which less than four percent were classified as actual crimes.

< p>These figures do not include the cost of creating the widely ridiculed “hate monster” character, a separate campaign that claimed that white working class men aged 18 to 30 are more likely to commit hate crimes.

The Scottish Government spent £389,689 on the Hate Hurts campaign, which last month ran for 21 days in the lead-up to the laws took effect on April Fool's Day.

The campaign included posters and a television ad in which the protagonist said: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words make me hate just for what I am”. He added that words could “open wounds that never heal.”

He urged Scots to report any hate crimes but did not explain the scope of the legislation, which includes protecting freedom of speech.