A female firearms officer is suing her force for sexism after claiming she was told she should not be allowed to attend incidents without a male colleague.

Rhona Malone, 43, is taking Police Scotland to an employment tribunal accusing the force of institutional sexism and saying female firearms officers were being "set up to fail".

Ms Malone, from West Lothian, said she had repeatedly been discriminated against at work but her complaints had been dismissed as "petty".

As part of her claim lawyers for the officer said she was often treated differently because she was a woman and was not taken seriously.

The full tribunal is expected to hear details of an email sent by a sergeant in her unit, which suggested it would not be a good idea to have two female officers deployed together because of the physical differences between the sexes.

The email read: "I'm going to plunge in with both feet and open myself up to being accused of being sexist.

"For operational reasons I don't want to see 2 x female officers deployed together when there are sufficient male staff on duty. This is based on my experience in the firearms and routine policing environment.