Kate Scottow, 38, has been charged after she referred to a transgender woman as a man

Police have charged a mother with trolling after she referred to a transgender woman as a man.

When Kate Scottow was arrested in December, Boris Johnson criticised the move as an 'abuse of manpower and police facilities'.

But now Mrs Scottow, 38, will face magistrates on charges of making malicious communications over social media comments about trans campaigner Stephanie Hayden.

The Crown Prosecution Service said she had been charged over 'persistent' messages designed to cause 'annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety' to another person between September 2018 and May 2019

Three officers arrested Mrs Scottow at her home in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in December last year as her then ten-year-old daughter and 20-month-old son looked on.

She was taken to a police station where she says she was detained in a cell for up for seven hours before being questioned.

After details of Mrs Scottow's case were revealed in The Mail on Sunday in February, Mr Johnson criticised her arrest when violent crime is on the rise.

Writing in a newspaper column, Mr Johnson, then a backbench Tory MP, asked: 'Is this really the right way to fight crime? Is this what our brave police officers signed up to do?

'Are you really telling me that it is a sensible ordering of priorities, when violence on the streets would seem to be getting out of control?'

Mrs Scottow's arrest came after a complaint by transgender activist Stephanie Hayden (left). Boris Johnson said sending three officers to deal with the case and holding Ms Scottow for seven hours was an 'abuse of manpower' at a time when violent crime is increasing

Last night, a CPS spokesman said the charge against Mrs Scottow had been authorised on August 21 'after reviewing a file of evidence from Hertfordshire Police relating to social media posts'.

She is due to appear at Stevenage Magistrates' Court on September 18.

Her case comes six months after Britain's first transgender hate crime prosecution was halted by a judge who declared: 'There is no case and never was a case.'

Miranda Yardley, 51, said she was put through ten months of hell after being accused of harassing a transgender activist on Twitter.

But District Judge John Woollard dismissed the case after a one-day hearing at Basildon Magistrates' Court in Essex, saying there was no evidence of a crime.