Now I’m not saying this was right, but in my day if a couple of 14-year old lads flashed at a couple of girls of a similar age in the park, it was frowned upon, but not taken too seriously.

If the lads were spotted by an adult they got a ticking off, if seen by a copper they were dragged home for their parents to deal with.

That’s not how Hampshire Police see it nowadays, as we report today. A one-off incident on Southampton Common has prompted them to spend time creating and issuing a photo-fit image of two boys who exposed themselves in just such a manner to two 13-year-old girls this week.

Over the top reaction to what was in all likelihood a silly prank? Or sensible precaution in the light of recent allegations over children, especially boys, becoming too sexually active too soon?

Of course when I was a lad it was in the seventies, a decade that, thanks to the actions of Jimmy Savile and others now being hunted down for alleged sexual misconduct over 40-years ago (and I agree, serious sexual misconduct should still be answered for no matter how much time has passed), is tainted as an era when harassment and sex crimes were taken as the everyday norm.

Fourteen year old boys can commit the most horrendous sex crimes, of course. But this still seems like overkill, unless we are not being given the full facts.

The safest way to avoid all misunderstandings would certainly seem to be a crack-down on any form of nudity in public.

Which reminds me, I do hope everyone enjoys this evening’s annual Southampton Naked Bike Ride. The police will no doubt be having a field day.

• Strangely, the introduction of the new humanised e-fit images that police now use to create ‘wanted photos’, as here in the case of the two ‘flasher’ boys of Southampton Common, reveals a potential and worrying hypocrisy. If the images of the boys are truly close to real life then they will soon be indentified and arrested. Yet as minors they must remain anonymous. Certainly I would say that if the police actually had real photos of the boys then they would not issue them to the media to be published world-wide. And this will go global, thanks to the trendy comment from the police that the boys had Justin Bieber-style hair dos (he’s a pop star if you don’t recognise the name). If the police artist has done his or her work well then, they will have identified two young boys as sex pests, contrary to the law and prior to any court hearing proving such an accusation. What a tangled web we weave.