Katie’s gran: pioneer or pariah?

'X Factor' star Katie Waissel's 81-year-old Grandma Sheila Vogel-Coupe, aka Grand Dame Cecilia Bird, announced this week she is a prostitute - which probably makes her one of the oldest practitioners of the oldest profession going.

Despite the leopard-print top, she doesn't fit the 'Band of Gold' stereotype many people imagine, being a rather well-to-do resident of wealthy St John's Wood. She hasn't been at it girl and woman since the war either - she's apparently only been active for two years.

The Internet enabled her behaviour like a digital pimp, hooking the pensioner up with men willing to pay her handsomely for sex. Her 'granny-grabbing' clients seem to be drawn from a cross-section of the male population; she mentions surveyors, tube drivers and bankers rather than dysfunctional weirdos who wouldn't be able to afford her fees, which she supplements by appearing in adult movies.

Katie and the rest of the family are obviously appalled (one can only wonder what Christmas is going to be like this year). However, it seems as though the resulting publicity may stimulate more men to engage in the services of specialist escort agencies.

More interestingly, it may lead some lady pensioners to conclude: "Why the devil not?" The money is excellent, the work is varied and there is a degree of companionship on offer from people who genuinely get on with older people.

Any elderly people who were tempted would be operating in a legal grey area though (in more ways than one), as escort services are legal but soliciting money for sex is against the law. Mrs Vogel-Coupe is operating on the edge of criminality but there's an increasing number of pensioners who are stone-cold criminals - like 81-year-old Dorothy Evans, who was sentenced to six months in prison for multiple breaches of an Asbo in 2007.

The Observer recently reported on the rise of the "saga lout", calling it a "grey crime wave" The prison service was already struggling with an aging population of inmates before a new wave of superannuated law-breakers started receiving custodial sentences. People over 60 are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population; Kingston prison in Portsmouth has become the first in the country to provide a special "elderly wing" complete with stairlifts.

The Observer comments: "The new statistics supplied by police forces show rises of between 15% and 25% in the numbers of pensioners being arrested." Reported crimes include weapons offences, sex crimes, drugs and theft - in other words, the same sort of misdeeds their grandchildren could be guilty of. By which I mean they are not special old people crimes like rigging the bingo or hot-wiring mobility scooters. This phenomenon is not a symptom of so-called 'Broken Britain' as the same trend is being reported from France to Japan.

Did some of these criminals become active after retirement as Mrs Vogel-Coupe did? It seems likely. Again, their behaviour may have been the result of loneliness, boredom, lack of funds and a sudden "Why the devil not?" moment. Especially when you consider that a stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure may be preferable to life in some old people's homes.

Rising criminality and open sexuality are challenging society's assumptions about older people, meaning it's possible that some good will come from Katie Waissel's humiliation and we'll begin to give some serious consideration to the wants and needs of the elderly. If people are making dramatic life-changing decisions at close to 80, surely it demonstrates that older people have to learn new skills and try new things, rather than be confined to a comfy chair.

Reassessing the potential of older people is vital now with the Baby Boomer generation clocking off and generating a surge of retirements - a trend which will continue during the next 30 years when, for the first time in human history, there will be more people on the planet over 60 than under the age of 15.