It was meant to be a gently embarrassing centrepiece for her son's 21st birthday.



But when Gail Jordan asked bakery staff at Asda to print a photograph of him as a baby on to a cake they didn't see the funny side.



After one look at the photograph – which featured her son David at about five months and lying on his front – they declared that putting it on the cake would constitute pornography because his bare bottom could be seen.

Cheek: Gail Jordan holds a censored cake after Asda refused to show her son's bottom

And when the supermarket censors finally agreed to use the picture they insisted it had to have a strategically-placed star.

Yesterday Miss Jordan said she was staggered that such a bit of innocent fun could be misconstrued as something illegal.



'They said it could be anyone's child so it could be deemed pornographic,' the 41- year-old care worker said. 'But I was asking to have it printed on a 21st birthday cake, so surely it was pretty obvious that it was my son.



'It's ridiculous – I understand they have rules, but there ought to be a place for common sense as well.



'In the end they would only do it with a star over his bottom, which to be honest made the whole thing even more hilarious.'



Miss Jordan had gone to a branch of Asda in Liscard, Wirral, with the snap from the family album to take advantage of a £9.97 offer to ice a birthday cake with a photo printed on the top.

Row: Asda would only print the picture on the cake if a star was placed on David's bottom

But when the picture was deemed to fall foul of the store's 'no nudity' policy, Miss Jordan was left with no time to return to her Rock Ferry home and get a different one.



The compromise – to place a white star over the photo when it was scanned to obscure the offending bottom – at least allowed the 21st birthday celebrations to pass off without a hitch, but Miss Jordan said she still believed Asda's policy was too strict.



'You see adverts all the time for things like nappies and baby wipes which feature babies' bottoms, so what's the difference?' she said. 'I just think it's ridiculous that my son's cake had to be censored.



'It's sad that because of the world we live in such an innocent photograph could be misinterpreted as something perverted. It's crazy how politically correct the world has become.'



Her son, who works at a bookmakers, added: 'It's just my bare bum, it's obviously totally harmless. It's stupid that they could suggest something so innocent could be pornographic.'



A spokesman for Asda confirmed its blanket ban on bare flesh.



'We have a policy, as do many other retailers, of no nudity, whatever the age of the subject,' he said. 'In this case we offered a number of alternatives including enlarging and cropping the photo, increasing the border size or applying a strategically placed star to save his blushes