ANYONE still clinging to the slim hope that the world might not yet have gone completely mad must have had their faith seriously challenged by the Sarah Cook affair.

Sarah is the 13-year-old Essex girl (she HAD to be an Essex girl) who wed an unemployed Turkish waiter after a holiday romance when she was just 12.

Musa Komeagae, the 18-year-old Romeo to Sarah's Juliet, is at present banged up in a Turkish jail awaiting trial on rape charges as girls under 15 are not allowed to marry in Turkey.

All this does seem a little harsh on poor Musa as, from all accounts, his child bride went to the marital chamber willingly, aided and abetted by her doting parents, who couldn't wait to flog their story to the Sun.

Now the critics among us might accuse Sarah's mum and dad of being pimps for their precocious daughter. Not a bit of it. Anyone who watched them on TV, explaining that they had done all in their power to dissuade her from tossing her young life away, must have been convinced by their integrity. I wasn't. But then acute cynicism is a particular failing of mine.

The fact that they had allowed her to wed a young Turk, embrace Islam and live in a land whose culture is as far removed from ours as Mars is hardly relevant.

However, her age IS relevant. At 13, she cannot possibly know what she has taken on. Laws are made to protect people, even from themselves, and Sarah Cook's welfare, so flagrantly and flippantly squandered by her parents, has now been taken over by Essex County Council, who successfully applied to have her made a ward of court.

Anyone reading this, with teenage daughters to care for and worry over, will have recurrent nightmares about just who their precious 'baby' is seeing and what she is getting up to in her spare time.

However, it could have been worse. Sarah is apparently much-loved by her in-laws, enjoys cooking and cleaning, has settled happily for a life of domestic bliss in a Turkish village and wants a family.

She could have chosen to fall for an unemployable tattooed British yob, who would leave her to push the child or children of their union round town while he gets rat-legged with his mates on social security hand-outs.

There are enough gymslip mums pushing prams round East Lancashire to support the theory that Sarah Cook, while a very early starter, isn't the only victim of an almost gobsmackingly permissive society.

Pick up any teen magazine, listen to any pop programme, watch any of the TV shows aimed at the young and you will very soon realise that sex is discussed as openly and freely as treatment for acne.

The problem is that acne, an embarrassment which has blighted many a young life, can and does respond to treatment. Sex, which zillions of misguided souls misinterpret as 'love,' can be a far more destructive force.

I hope Sarah Cook doesn't learn that fact the hard way. And I hope responsible mums and dads are stressing that point to their 'Sarahs.' A lifetime of commitment is a high price to pay for a teenage romance - whether it be in Turkey or Tockholes!

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