Let's face it, they don't mess around in Colombia. To add to the many hazards of life in that sun-kissed paradise - including kidnap, death by coke-dealing guerillas, or getting shot by enraged footie fans (ok, that only applies to World Cup squad defenders, but still...) - is the very real possibility that a moment of macho madness might earn you an extended spell in chokey.

More specifically, if you're a bicycle courier and you grab a handful of Diana Marcela Diaz's posterior, you can expect to spend the next four years playing hunt the soap in a Bogota slammer.

Ms Diaz, the BBC reports, was on the receiving end of said outrage and, although the perp tried to make good his escape, he was debiked by passers-by. The unnamed octopus was subsequently cuffed, and his victim rather splendidly offered the option of "slapping him, letting him go, or filing a complaint".

Declining to give him a good whack in the chops for his trouble, Diaz decided to "set a precedent that would stop sexist behaviour", as she explained. It worked too, because the bloke was banged up for a four stretch - a sentence slammed by some lawyers as "excessive".

A (female) member of the national ombudsman's office said the courier had acted merely "out of lust", offering: "He didn't use violence or commit a sexual act." ®

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