Hey, wanna see some dirty pictures?

Facts first. An unidentified BBC presenter, a household name, has paid a teenager of unspecified sex large sums for explicit selfies.

That fair exchange went on for three years, starting when the teenager was 17. The age of consent in Britain is 16, but any person under 18 is covered by the Protection of Children Act 1978. Thus a 17-year-old can marry but is still considered a child for such photographic purposes.

Two months ago, the model’s family complained to the BBC, asking the Corporation to tell the presenter to stop those payments, which by then had totalled £35,000. Apparently, the recipient used his modelling fees to buy crack to which he had become addicted.

(As I’ve mentioned, the teenager’s sex hasn’t been disclosed. Nevertheless, I’m using the masculine personal pronouns for two reasons.

First, grammatical tradition has it that, when the sex is unknown, “a man embraces a woman”, and I won’t go back on it for any half-witted woke reasons. Second, taking a stab in the dark, I suspect the teenager was a boy, on the general assumption that pornographic images of girls are more widely available, less controversial and therefore cheaper. Third, it’s the BBC, isn’t it?)

Yet the BBC waited several weeks before first taking the presenter off the air and then suspending him. That doesn’t even begin to describe his troubles if he is found guilty.

The Metropolitan Police have got into the act, and those chaps play for keeps when such allegations are made. They don’t even bother investigating burglaries and muggings, but give them something naughty, especially with woke implications, and they go all out.

The wayward presenter must be quaking in his Church’s: violating the aforementioned Act is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Yet if the TV star is also found guilty under the Child Pornography Act, the potential sentence is up to 14 years.

Since the BBC is at this stage protecting the transgressor’s privacy, correctly in my view, speculations are rife about his identity. So rife, in fact, that several presenters have felt called upon to scream “It ain’t me, gov” publicly, or words to that effect.

Meanwhile, I think this case is God’s way of telling the BBC it’s paying its presenters way too much. Shelling out £35,000 for a few dirty pictures, of the kind that supposedly can be downloaded for free, suggests that the sum is but pocket change for the presenter.

So it must be. For example, Gary Lineker is on £1.35 million a year, and that’s after he has taken a pay cut. No wonder he was one of the presenters hastily disclaiming guilt in this scandal.

Now, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business how much a company pays to how many of its employees. This case, however, is different because the BBC is funded by the Exchequer, which is to say by the public – us. That justifies nosiness on my part: after all, a few pennies of that £35,000 came from me.

What’s worse is the hypocrisy of it all, on everyone’s part: the BBC, the newspaper accounts of the scandal, the government, the public.

The whole affair is tawdry, sleazy, immoral, and you can continue this thesaurus of synonymous adjectives on your own. But the pitch of the outcry is as ludicrous as the nature of it is insincere.

First, the same government, acting in the name of the same public and with the approval of most of the same newspapers, concocts a school curriculum designed to sexualise children from kindergarten onwards.

Elementary school teachers use cucumbers to illustrate the proper use of condoms, children are taught that sex with boys/girls/others is perfectly healthy and normal even before one’s teens, various techniques for making it more enjoyable are discussed and illustrated.

Little girls are encouraged to practise sartorial standards traditionally favoured by ladies of easy virtue, little boys are brainwashed to think it’s perfectly normal for them to want to become little girls. Unchaperoned children can visit any website where they watch things that can make even a grown man blush.

Pictures of naked bodies, intertwined or otherwise, are everywhere. The kind of publications that used to be wrapped in cellophane for newsagents to put on the highest shelf are now claiming pride of shelf-place.

By the time a child is 17 nothing is off-limits, few things have been left untried. And then a demigod (the status of any TV star) comes round, offering untold riches for a few selfies the teenager would happily shoot for free. Why not take the money? Neither his school nor (I’m guessing) his family has built any moral barriers in the way of such a transaction.

Thus any pervert, such as the unspecified BBC presenter, has perfectly primed hunting grounds for his exploits. And considering his employer, he has to be a man of the left who doesn’t set much store by traditional morality and probity.

His moral guidance has to come not from Exodus or St Matthew but from Ernest Hemingway: “If it feels good, it’s moral.” So fine, his tastes may be slightly eccentric. But he feels good, the model doesn’t mind, no one gets hurt. So what’s the problem?

I could easily answer that question, but not in a way that a typical BBC presenter can understand. However, whatever the real problem is, it won’t be solved by nailing that pervert to the wall. That doesn’t mean he should be spared: aesthetic balance demands that he be eviscerated, figuratively speaking.

I just wish we were spared hypocritical pronouncements, phony gasps and rolled eyes. We reap what we sow and we get what we should expect – what we deserve.