MAYBE someone involved in the law can explain how or why underage sex and drinking is allowed to be shown in TV soaps and programmes, or implied?

Both are against the law, yet school children are depicted in both. To assist or encourage is also against the law, so surely TV companies are in contempt of the law. Yet nothing is done except the issuing of underage pregnancy figures and a little tut-tutting.

Sex advice agencies give contraceptives to girls as young as nine. Again nothing is done, as with underage sex in general. Should an adult indulge in sex with say, a promiscuous 14 to 15-year-old, all hell breaks loose, yet we ignore the actions of adults who promote and encourage underage sex at virtually any and every opportunity. What is the difference?

We rightly class pimps, rapists and paedophiles as vermin, yet do nothing about those who give them encouragement. Whichever way you look at it, adults are the root cause of underage sex in whichever form. Is this why we do nothing about it?

Many programmes even promote homosexuality. As one girl said in a recent TV programme "don't knock it until you've tried it!" I'm no prude, but it makes you wonder just how far things will degenerate.

Maybe the clue to it all was when the "public" voted Big Brother as Best Factual TV Programme!

TV and teen magazines are only interested in audience/sales figures. They have the arrogance to condemn sleaze, yet see no problem promoting it. Society's self-righteous do-gooders have a lot to answer for, yet still we do nothing.

Geoff Pollitt

Deane, Bolton