The opinions expressed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper

SOCIETY'S reaction to the country's latest teeny dad - the fag-smoking persistent truant who, at just 13, has become Britain's youngest father of twins - seems to be one of first gobbling up the sordid details from the tabloid newspaper who paid him "several thousand pounds" for his story, engaging in a collective rolling of eyes in horror at the tale and then waiting for the next under-age parent to set a new record.

This one, however, will take some beating - as he, his family and that of the mother of his children make pond life seem respectable.

Apart from being nigh-permanently absent from school, a cigarette smoker, from a single-parent family like the 17-year-old mother of his children, living on a sink estate in a house lacking panes in the windows, but equipped with satellite TV and a computer on which he plays games and with a hard-drinking transvestite in residence sleeping with his mother and sister, this proud parent also takes the biscuit for claiming his friends are probably jealous of his achievement.

Indeed, it is quite possible that he regards his notoriety and the tainted cash it has earned as the kind of handsomely-paid fame that his peers in Manchester's Gorton area might well envy.

And given that we are told that this youngster and his partner were not only climbing into bed together while their parents turned a blind eye, but were even encouraged by them, it is also possible to understand why he feels they have done nothing to be ashamed of. But why aren't he and his partner taught that what they have done is shameful - and our prurient society taught that too by an example being made in this case?

The nearest thing to reproof that officialdom has come up with in response to this scummy case is for the local authority to order an inquiry - which in today's non-judgmental age will probably end in a mild lament that this pair were not given adequate contraceptive advice.

Indeed, with a smart lawyer behind them, I reckon they could collect several thousands of pounds in compensation for having been so let down.

Meantime, the council is fixing them up with a council house and the DSS is no doubt hurling a pile of benefits at them.

Some reproof that is!

But what about the law?

This under-age dad from the dregs is technically the victim of a sexual assault by his above-age bedmate.

Are the authorities, like their disgraceful parents, going to turn a blind eye, too, and, like the rest of us, just roll their eyes in impotent horror and then roll them again when the next lot of under-age parents sets a new record in this country's already abysmally-low moral standards?

If no-one in authority has the guts to condemn any more and the law stands aside, there will be more.

It is at this moral cowardice that I roll my eyes.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.