THE NSPCC’s Flaw in the Law campaign highlights an issue so obvious that we wonder why it wasn’t addressed years ago.

It is impossible to pinpoint the first instance of an adult sending a depraved text message to a child, but we suspect it happened almost immediately after the technology became widely available toward the end of the last century.

A recent poll revealed that most of us believe the sending of such messages is already illegal, and this is a measure not of our ignorance but of the obvious common sense of such a measure.

Unfortunately for society at large and potential underage victims in particular, something being obvious common sense does not necessarily mean it will be enacted promptly into law.

Currently, the only redress for young victims receiving such messages is via various other laws, none of which were specifically designed to cover this issue.

Even if a victim can persuade the authorities to take the offence seriously, there is a grave risk of perpetrators, with the aid of clever lawyers, being able to wriggle out of their culpability.

The results include an unknowable number of victims denied justice, an unknowable number of potentially dangerous criminals free to offend again, and the further compromising of public faith in the criminal justice system.

The sooner this injustice is consigned to the past, where it belongs, the better.

Everybody should support the NSPCC’s campaign.