TEENAGE children are never far from the headlines, the older generation often echoing the old song: “Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way, oh what’s the matter with kids today?”

Indescribably loud pop music with incomprehensible lyrics, obsessions with Facebook, ‘selfies’, and apparent addiction to smartphones, youth culture as always can seem light years from the experience of mums and dads.

But a darker side of youth culture has been exposed in several areas over the past few years, a side which has left ‘underage’ teenagers open to exploitative and predatory manipulation.

Up and down the land the phenomenon investigated by the Bullfinch inquiry here in Oxford has been spreading, even to the point that we are no longer shocked by hearing of yet more cases.

The ‘age of consent’, still formally 16, is supposed to protect youngsters, especially girls, from exploitation. And yet we hear the testimony of underage girls reporting that they had sex with older men but that the police mostly ignored this – why?

Part of the answer is that the age bar of 16 has in effect been unofficially melted, in particular by judges. Their lordships rejected the complaint of a concerned mother that underage girls at school were being given contraceptives and sex advice by school nurses and doctors, while keeping parents in the dark about it.

The result of this case was The ‘Fraser Guidelines’, named after a judge in the case.

Their lordships, basically doing away with the hard and fast age limit protecting underage girls, said: “...whether or not a child is capable of giving the necessary consent will depend on the child’s maturity and understanding and the nature of the consent required.” ” (Gillick v West Norfolk, 1984).

But undeniably the state and judiciary has blurred the ‘age of consent’ by this judgement, making under age sex fine, given ‘consent’.

That is one major reason for police inactivity.

The state, the judges and police have together changed the context of consent to underage sex.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, responding to Bullfinch, has announced that schools are to teach more on consent.

Parents need bringing into the picture for sure, they love their children and want the best for them.

Criminals should be the focus of government response, with very high tariffs for such dreadful wrong.

And churches have a key part to play in inculcating teaching about the context of sex, that is loving and committed relationships.