A TOPLESS sunbather is being investigated by police after being accused of sensuously rubbing sun cream on herself on a public beach.

Police were called to a beach at Anzio south of Rome by a furious mother who said the way the “attractive” sunbather was rubbing lotion on her body had “troubled her sons aged 14 and 12.”



The mother said she had asked the 26-year-old woman, identified only as Luisa under Italian privacy laws, to cover herself up. But the woman, still topless, refused and an argument broke out and police were called.



“A patrol was stopped by a mother of two sons who was angry at a topless sunbather and the way she was applying suntan cream,” a police spokesman said.

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“The patrol went and took her details and she argued, still topless, that she could so no harm in what she was doing as it was a public beach.



“We have opened a file on committing an obscene act as we are committed to following the complaint. From what I heard she was very attractive,” the spokesman said.



The complaint has triggered a debate in Italy about topless bathing, with the Luisa’s lawyer calling the incident “absurd”.



“She is amazed that she is being condemned for simply sunbathing topless,” lawyer Gianluca Arrighi said.



“'Let's be clear my client is tall, brunette and has an ample breast and is therefore going to naturally be sensuous when she applies cream to her chest.



'The fact a file has been opened is compulsory following the complaint but I can't imagine any judge in 2010 convicting a woman for sunbathing topless.

Mr Arrighi said there could be grounds for his client to sue for slander if the case is dropped as “you can't be reported for sunbathing topless in 2010”.



Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper waded into the argument by defending the sunbather.



"Summer is the season where everything happens but it is also the time of pathological mentalities ... where was she supposed to apply the cream on her clothes?" said a commentator.



The number of women sunbathing topless on beaches in Italy and France has dropped in recent years, Italian etiquette expert Countess Barbara Ronchi della Rocca told the UK’s Daily Mail.



Ms Rocca said the beach is no longer the place where you go to get a tan, as people spend the winter topping up their tan in salons.



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