THE senior officer for hate crime in North Yorkshire expects dozens of cases of misogyny to be logged within months.

Superintendent Mark Khan has spoken further about the introduction of misogyny as a hate crime after the force announced this week that it would follow the lead of Nottinghamshire Police and update their hate crime policy to include unwanted sexual or verbal advances towards women.

But he said it was not as simple as arresting men for catcalling or wolf-whistling at women, and officers would now be specially trained to assess whether crimes where women are the victim have taken place because of their gender.

“It doesn’t mean every crime committed against a woman will be a misogyny-aggravated crime. What we’re trying to do is formally identify those crimes specific to the gender of the individual.

“I know Nottinghamshire got a lot of questions about wolf-whistling being a crime. I think that trivialises what we’re trying to do with misogyny and if someone thinks wolf-whistling is the extent of it, then they don’t understand what misogyny is.”

Supt Khan said he expected dozens of cases to be logged within months, after Nottinghamshire Police recorded 30 in the first five months - 11 of which were considered hate crimes, including harassment, kidnapping, possession of weapons and causing public fear, alarm or distress, each with an element of misogyny.

Currently, possible hate crimes include actual or perceived disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender.

The new classification was announced on Wednesday - International Women’s Day - and will come into play from May. However, Supt Khan said he did not expect to see a huge leap in hate crimes from the changes.

“This is about identifying crimes that are already happening to women and incidents where the crime is because they are a woman. We’re trying to understand that on behalf of 50 per cent of our community. This is a long-term thing and it’s about power imbalances that women feel in public.

“It’s a very specific definition, they have to have that hate element to the crime, and it’s understanding that. We’re wanting to open up the debate and see where this goes, and see whether our community feel this is a good idea and what the response is.”