TORY press officer Adam Morris has apologised for sharing a pornographic picture on Twitter.
The party’s head of communications said the image was a “misguided joke”.
The SNP said the tweet was "clearly inappropriate".
It was tweeted after an unusual Thursday afternoon in Hamilton that also saw the Scottish Resistance protestor Sean Clerkin arrested for wasting police time.
The campaign stop was supposed to be a routine election photo-op at Hamilton Accies involving Ruth Davidson taking a penalty in front of some photographers.
Clerkin turned up early, wearing a suit, telling staff at the club he was a journalist. He then made his way onto the pitch and tore up a copy of the newly published Scottish Tory manifesto.
A bemused Morris, wearing jeans and a jumper, watched on.
Club security staff then rushed to remove the protester from the club. Unfortunately for them they managed to mistake Morris for Clerkin and escorted the Tory press chief away from the cameras.
On video of the event they can be heard saying to Ruth Davidson’s spokesman: “I need to ask you to leave.”
A surprised Morris says, “Me?” – before they move him on.
An even more surprised Clerkin can be heard saying: “They’re actually questioning him – he’s the head of media for the Tories”
The video of the footage then went viral on Twitter, and left Morris inundated with tweets, In response to one comment, the Tory spin doctor tweeted the crude sexual picture before quickly deleting it.
The pro-independence blogger Wings over Scotland shared a screengrab of the offending tweet today commenting: “Imagine if the SNP’s head of media, rather than the @ScotTories’ one, had tweeted this to a journalist yesterday.”
An SNP spokesman said: “This was clearly an inappropriate thing for one of Ruth Davidson’s staff to share on a public website – you would expect her Head of Press to be more careful about what they tweet.”
Morris told The National: “It was a stupid thing to tweet, a misjudged joke, and that’s why I deleted it soon after.
“I’ll happily apologise to anyone who was upset by it.”
Meanwhile, Sean Clerkin alleges that when staff realised that he was the protestor at Hamilton Accies’ New Douglas Park he was punched in the face leaving him with bruising and a black eye. Doctors told him he had suffered “soft tissue damage” as a result of the incident.
After officers from Police Scotland investigated they said Clerkin had wasted their time and charged him accordingly.
A spokesperson for the force said:“Following a complaint made to Police Scotland regarding the actions of stadium officials, enquiries were carried out into the allegations made. and a 55 year-old man is the subject of a report to the procurator-fiscal in connection with allegedly wasting police time.”
Clerkin, who denied the charge, said he was still in pain and that it was the first time in years of direct action that he had ever been physically assaulted.
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