Doctors, vicars and social workers have become the focus of police probes into hate crimes, startling new data has revealed.

The professions are just a handful of examples among those in positions of authority who have been investigated for simply trying to carry out their jobs.

A doctor was allegedly the focus of a probe for misdiagnosing a patient, while a vicar was accused of a hate crime for saying it is a religious sin to be gay.

Non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) are technically reserved for cases ‘clearly motivated by intentional hostility’ with a real risk of escalation ‘causing significant harm or a criminal offence’.

But a freedom of information request has revealed they are also being used against children and journalists, The Times reports.

Anyone reported for one could also face having the details passed on to a prospective employer under an enhanced criminal record check.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has openly spoken out against NCHIs involving children saying they were ‘a waste of police time’, after it emerged a nine-year-old girl was investigated for calling a fellow pupil a ‘retard’.

Last night No 10 agreed it was important for police to spend their time protecting the public, but added that the recording of NCHIs was used as a tool to prevent escalation and future crimes.

But Jake Hurfurt, from privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said there was clearly evidence of ‘questionable’ incidents involving police.

He said: ‘Interpersonal squabbles have no place in police records, and forces devalue the concept of real hate crime when they spend time on thousands of these unnecessary reports.

‘Police must make sure they protect freedom of expression and privacy by only recording NCHIs when absolutely necessary.’

He added: ‘Plans from the Home Secretary to widen the scope for NCHI recording are alarming, and she should press pause to consider the chilling effect such a move could have on free speech in the UK.’

Earlier this week it emerged that 45 police forces recorded 13,200 NCHIs in the 12 months to June this year.

One was recorded against a journalist who was reported to the police for his interview with a ‘deaf and dumb’ scooterist.

Meanwhile in Surrey, police logged a hate incident after a pub asked a couple to leave after accusing them of having sex in the toilets at the venue.

It was alleged they had been the victim of a hate crime, because one of them was transgender.

Surrey Police maintain that the NCHI was correct.

Elsewhere a social worker was reported to police in Lancashire over claims she had  racially discriminated against a woman by preventing her from seeing her children.

The NCHI report said she had also failed to pass on gifts to them.

NCHIs were thrust into the spotlight this week when two Essex police officers visited newspaper columnist Allison Pearson following a complaint about a social media post from a year ago, which has since been deleted.

Ms Pearson says she has not been told which message generated the accusation, or who made it.

Writing in yesterday’s Daily Mail, former prime minister Boris Johnson said that was ‘obviously wrong, and tyrannical, and redolent of the Soviet Union at its worst’.

‘The police should clearly abandon immediately their investigation into this deleted tweet,’ he said.

‘The whole thing would be a complete joke, if it were not so serious for Allison Pearson – and for all of us living in Starmer’s Britain today.’

The Free Speech Union has branded non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) as ‘thought policing’.

Sir Keir this week backed their use, prompting Mr Johnson to attack the PM’s ‘deathless skill in plonking himself on the wrong side of the argument’.

‘If someone doesn’t like what you have said, you can be done for a non-crime hate incident, or worse, and be damned for ever. Isn’t it a nightmare?

‘It’s certainly a disaster for policing, because good officers are having to waste their time on this nonsense, so that they can’t attend burglaries; and every hour that they spend scanning the ether for ‘offensive’ tweets is an hour they can’t spend on the beat deterring the criminal gangs who swipe your mobile phone.’

He adds: ‘Inch by inch we are losing our place on the moral high ground. Our enemies can detect this erosion of old British freedoms, and they will unhesitatingly exploit it… We are seeing a relentless and sometimes brutal drowning-out of those who dare to dissent.’

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told The Daily Telegraph: ‘We need to stop this behaviour of people wasting police time on trivial incidents because they don’t like something, as if they’re in a nursery. It’s like children reporting each other.’

A former Director of Public Prosecutions also warned that a suggestion that police should record yet more ‘trivial’ NCHIs would be a ‘terrible mistake’. Lord Macdonald urged Home Secretary Yvette Cooper not to weaken restrictions on police over how they make use of the reports.

Ms Cooper is thought to want to make it easier for police to use NCHIs for anti-Semitic and Islamophobic abuse, but Lord Macdonald warned that ramping up their use could have ‘real world consequences’ for potentially innocent individuals.

Free speech campaigners also say watering down the restrictions, first introduced by ex-home secretary Suella Braverman last year, could have harrowing effects.