It was ages ago that we were one of the first sources to identify Happy Slapping - back in January 2005, in fact. Since then, it’s grown from a tasteless prank - filming on a camera phone an unsuspecting victim’s reaction to being slapped on the cheek - to filming incredibly violent, illegal and unprovoked attacks.

Far from being a fad that died out quickly, it’s now gone mainstream, with these attacks being filmed and uploaded on sites like Google’s YouTube.

The BBC’s veteran investigative reporting programme, Panorama, tackled the subject last night with their Children’s Fight Club episode, including showing very disturbing footage of some attacks, interviews with kids who film the fights and the victims themselves. Probably most upsetting for the victims is that it’s humiliating enough to be beaten up, but really horrid to know that your peers and perfect strangers alike can see the evidence for themselves again and again.

Most horrid of all though (Google generally takes down films when they get complaints) are sites like Live Leak (no link as I don’t want them to get the Google Juice), ...