A couple of years ago, I was ‘goosed’ on my way to work. A man stood behind me on the tube and firmly pressed his groin into my backside, leaving it there for an uncomfortably long time. I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. It still makes me shudder to remember now.

Friends have seen men masturbating on trains, been groped on the bus or grabbed and pulled into stranger’s laps, as they try to sit down. And they are the ones who feel able to talk about it - many women (for it is mostly women) are too mortified or humiliated.

According to the British Transport Police, 70 per cent of offences reported to it are sexual assaults on women, 20 per cent are ‘outraging public decency’ (masturbation), six per cent are ‘exposure’ and two per cent are assaults on men. Yet, say Transport for London, 90 per cent of all 'unwanted' sexual advances on the capital's public transport go entirely unreported.

These are alarming numbers. But none of this could make me support the idea of ‘women only’ carriages.