Child cage fighting is unhealthy pastime

But, realistically, not all of them.

For example, there is little to be happy about seeing an eight year-old and a nine-year-old boy doing battle in a cage in Preston while adults roar them on.

Worse, when one of the boys seems visibly distressed, he is checked by medics – and then the fight goes on.

The event at a social club is plainly not a one-off. In fact, one professional adult cage fighter said it’s growing in popularity among children.

But, unlike boxing, there are no headguards or gloves and, unlike wrestling, cage fighting is known for its “anything goes” approach.

The father of one of the boys defended his actions saying “If he wasn’t cage fighting he would probably be chucking stones at buses and giving people grief”, which, I’m afraid, says more than he probably meant about discipline at home.

Exercise and sport are vital to growing bodies, and they can certainly deflect potentially destructive energy which sometimes pushes youngsters towards anti-social behaviour and vandalism.

But the really worrying thing here, away from the whole morality (and possible legal ramifications) of permitting and encouraging your child to take part in this kind of “sport”, is the role of the adults.

There is something particularly unsavoury about a group of men standing around a wire cage watching children fight, their baying comments lubricated by alcohol.

The atmosphere was more like a mediaeval bear pit than your average group of dads at a school football match. In our “civilised society” we are the first to criticise the exploitation of children around the world, and rightly so.

Yet we appear to see nothing wrong with caged children slugging it out for adult entertainment on home turf.

The only positive element to emerge from this rather distasteful event is that it has polarized public opinion, and brought the participants to the attention of the authorities.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.