Treating misogyny as a hate crime is a "waste of time" police have said as a report reveals there has been just one conviction during a two-year scheme.

A paper by the University of Nottingham said that officers at Nottinghamshire Police thought the policy was a “ticky box” exercise which used up their time and resources.

Under plans being considered nationally crimes such as harassment could attract enhanced sentences if motivated by sexism and are recorded as misogyny hate crimes.

Nottinghamshire Police has been recording offences as misogynistic where sexism is involved, in an effort to encourage more women to come forward.

While the public supported the change and women who had reported incidents were broadly positive about it, police were “dismissive” and “not in favour of the introduction of the policy”, research by Professor Louise Mullany, of the University of Nottingham, and Dr Loretta Trickett, of Nottingham Trent University's Law School, found.

Officers said it “incorporated some behaviours that were fairly trivial, did not warrant a police response and that it involved a waste of resources without being backed by a mandate from the public”.

One officer said that it “felt like a vanity project”.

“I just think if someone wolf whistles you when you walk past a building site, “So what? Really?” If someone came up to me in a gym and said “you look good in your lycra” I’d take it – ‘thanks!’