Surprise! I’m not Poldark

LAST week, I mentioned an obscure offence called ‘theft by finding’. That’s what you can be charged with if you find some lost property but fail to make a reasonable effort to trace the owner.

This week, I’ve stumbled across another — ‘ rape by surprise’. At the moment it seems to apply only in France, but I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s introduced here.

A Frenchman who l ured women into taking part in Fifty Shades of Grey sex games has just been charged with ‘rape by surprise’.

They all took part willingly after being attracted by his picture on a website, which showed a handsome, squarej awed male model with designer stubble. But one woman told how when she took off her blindfold after having sex with him she was horrified. Her fantasy l over was, i n reality, a fat, balding, wrinkled 68-year-old. Surprise! That was when she cried rape. The suspect, known only as Michel, claimed: ‘When she entered the bedroom naked, she was consenting. At that moment, she didn’t care what I looked like.’

Call me old-fashioned, but what kind of madwoman agrees to have blindfold sex with a complete stranger she’s found on the internet?

Michel is said to have got away with i t on dozens of previous occasions. His other ‘victims’ were none the wiser until contacted by police.

These women must have been expecting to be seduced by Ross Poldark, only to wake up with his crumpled old uncle, played by the much-missed Warren Clarke.

Here we go Looby Loo!