The Telegraph reports the Hasselt jail is using the security scan as an excuse to get women to remove their bras

Joseph Rowies, a representative of criminal barristers in the Flemish city, stressed that while women lawyers have no problem with the security checks they had spotted that the prettier the visitor, the more sensitive the scanner became.

Rowies points out that even with a high volume of complaints the jail management uses security as a defensive method to stall any investigation.

Mr Rowies has told the prison authorities that he is receiving at least one complaint a month from furious female barristers. “It always strikes me that the younger, and the more babe-like, a lawyer is, the more difficult the device becomes,” he said.

“I’ve suggested that the prison guards to wear name tags so we can verify if it is always the same officers. But the management has refused for security reasons.”

Babe-like? Why not just describe and pinpoint the offending guards the same way — how they look? The situation does raise the inevitable question about trustworthiness of a security control. Perhaps Rowies could also ask that the scanners be randomly audited by a standard calibration.