Sexist crimes to get tougher sentences

A SCHEME that could lead to sexism being made a hate crime with tougher sentences could be extended nationwide.

Nottinghamshire Police introduced the trial last year in which it recorded incidents such as wolf whistling, street harassment, verbal abuse and taking photographs without consent as a hate crime.

Police chiefs are due to receive a full report on the pilot scheme and other forces around the country are said to have expressed an interest in following Nottinghamshire’s lead.

If adopted it could result in offenders being treated more harshly if they were misogynistic – defined by officers as ‘behaviour targeted towards women by men simply because they are a woman’.

Assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton, spokesman on hate crime at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said he believed police were ‘going to take this forward’ when he was questioned about the pilot scheme at the Commons’ women and equalities committee.

Conservative MP Maria Miller, who chairs the committee, said there had been ‘significant and growing concern over the past few years about routine sexism and sexual harassment that women and girls experience in their daily lives’.