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Leicestershire Police has been criticised online for flying a Pride flag outside its headquarters to celebrate LGBT+ History Month.

The force's LGBT network Twitter account tweeted a picture of the transgender flag flying outside the headquarters in Enderby on Sunday (February 16).

However, the tweet has since received hundreds of responses from social media users criticising the force for being 'too political' and claiming the raising of the flag was a 'waste of police time'.

Some Twitter users said the force should be flying the Union Flag rather than the Pride flag and one user called the force a 'laughing stock'.

The most common complaint from users was officers should have been 'patrolling the streets' rather than 'wasting time' raising the flag.

One user said: "You lot have lost the plot. Start doing some work patrol the streets."

Another said: "Why would they tackle knife crime, gang related or drug issues, when they could be scoring woke points in the comfort of a nice warm office?"

However, the force has strongly defended their flying of the flag, and also said the issue was not a political one.

They tweeted in response: "Sadly there are many negative comments on this thread, this tweet was not about being political, it's about showing support for LGBT+ History Month.

"It's about informing & celebrating, it's about educating out prejudice & making LGBT+ people visible in all their rich diversity."

The force also responded to one person who said they should have been doing 'police work' to say that much of the work done by the LGBT+ network is done in the members' own time.

The tweet said: "We are doing police work. The LGBT+ network is ran by officers and staff and much of the work they do for the network is done in their own time."