When Paul, a Scottish boy, lost his virginity to an older girl, he never thought he might be committing a crime. Emma, his first girlfriend, was a year older than him at 15 and already sexually experienced. But when her parents discovered the nature of their relationship, it was 14-year-old Paul who was threatened with the law.

“All hell broke loose, made worse when they phoned my parents, who rushed round for a mortifying conference,” he recalls. Paul thought his parents would be reasonably supportive, as they liked Emma and had always been straightforward about sex education.

“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” he says. “Emma’s dad kept saying: ‘We could get the police in, you know,’ and my mum was agreeing with him. I kept waiting for Emma to defend me, even if she couldn’t tell them that I wasn’t the first person she’d had sex with, but to say it was a mutual decision.”

Both sets of parents agreed that the relationship had to end immediately. Emma’s parents told Paul they would call the police if he tried to contact her and have him charged with having sex with a minor. He was shocked. “We were just two teenagers experimenting.”

But the adults were correct. It is an offence for anyone to have sex with a girl under the age of 16 – even if the other person is a child himself.

It’s the experience of boys like Paul that encouraged Chief Superintendent Clive Murray, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, to speak out recently against the law.

Murray told Joan McFadden of The Sunday Times Scotland that the current legal age of consent did not distinguish between sexual abuse and “youthful natural instinct”. The age of consent in Britain is 16, but many European countries set it much lower.

His concerns echo those of academics and senior police officers in England, who believe the Sexual Offences Act 2003 has criminalised an entire generation.

One of the most scathing critics is John Spencer, professor of law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, who calls the measures “legislative overkill”. He believes the law is completely out of touch with the behaviour of young people and says it will “eventually make indictable offenders of the whole population”.

So will Scotland learn from what Spencer believes to be England’s mistake? The Scottish Law Commission has been asked to look at sexual offences and will report to the Scottish executive next year.

A discussion paper by the commission has advised against lowering the age of consent to 13, as in France, or 12, as in Malta and the Netherlands. It suggests this would make teenagers much more vulnerable to exploitation. However, it has invited comments from experts, which will influence its final report.

The charity Children 1st believes clarification is required. “We support the need to have a legal age for consent to sex, as this underlines that sexual activity is about emotional maturity as well as physical maturity,” says head of public affairs Tom Roberts. “Such an offence is important for the protection of young people who are still maturing and developing.”

The charity wants teenagers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law to be dealt with at children’s hearings. By keeping them out of adult courts, criminalisation can be avoided.

The Victorians raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 to tackle the scourge of child prostitution. Yet the restriction has done little to prevent Scottish adolescents from losing their virginity at a younger age than those in countries with more liberal laws.

More than a quarter of young people aged between 13 and 15 in Glasgow have already had sex, according to a report published last week to launch the city council’s new sexual health strategy. Teenage pregnancy rates are high in every Scottish city, with Dundee topping the league.

Glasgow city council found a depressingly familiar picture when it asked a market research company to interview 2,700 young people across the city. This was not because so many had lost their virginity by 16 — that was expected — but because of their attitudes. A very large number of girls admitted being drunk when they had sex, believing they could avoid the label of “slag” if they were seen not to be in control.

The sexual health strategy devised as a result of the survey goes beyond improving education. It places an old-fashioned emphasis on respect, intimacy and the family.

In Scotland, 59 per cent of 15-year-old boys spend most evenings with their friends, compared with 17 per cent in France, according to a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research. In Italy, 93 per cent of teenagers eat with their families, compared with 64 per cent in Scotland. Changing the age of consent might make very little difference, then. Having dinner with mum and dad could prove to be a far more effective contraceptive.