THE name Ken Hardman may not mean much to you. He is, by all accounts, an average bloke living a normal life - but recently happened to be at the centre of an extraordinary event (although this occurrence, I'll wager, will pretty soon cease to be remarkable.) Get to the point, you're probably saying. So I will.

Mr Hardman was taken to task for leaving his car unattended with the engine running. Maybe not the brightest thing to do, you might think, and you'd be right. But the car was parked on Mr Hardman's property. It was also securely locked and he was in the house, just feet away, waiting for the windscreen to de-ice.

He could have done what millions of less considerate motorists do, and driven off, fingers crossed, peering through a little hole scraped in the ice. I could understand had he been pulled up for that.

Instead, the police pounced because, in their opinion, he was leaving himself open to the unwanted attentions of a car thief.

Maybe so, but surely that's his problem? Mr Hardman was quite confident his car was secure and safe. Had it been pinched, then he may have had a hard time explaining it to his insurers, but, again, was it really a matter for the police?

Their attitude smacks of the hoary old judge who reckons a woman dressed provocatively is just asking to be sexually assaulted. It's reminiscent, too, of the advice to youngsters not to be seen out and about with their MP3 players, as that would be just too much of an invitation to muggers.

Three in four crooks know they can get away with their misdeeds without having their grubby collars felt, but isn't it taking things a bit far to pick on the victims... or even, in Ken Hardman's case, potential victims?

What next? Will we be done for having our telly too close to the window or wearing expensive trainers or a gold watch?

If things carry on like this, Bournemouth beach will pretty soon resemble Copacabana, where tourists are told not to wear jewellery because to do so would almost certainly result in robbery, probably with a bit of violence thrown in.