The film director Roman Polanski arrived at a festival in Zurich last weekend to get recognition for his life’s work. In a way, he did. He was arrested on a warrant and extradition request issued by US judicial authorities. Mr Polanski pleaded guilty in 1978 to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles, but then fled to France, which would not extradite him. He has lived there ever since.

There has been hot dispute in recent days over whether Mr Polanski is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. His defenders, who are almost exclusively celebrities, are on the losing side. There is one excellent argument for showing a bit of leniency to Mr Polanski, but his defenders are not making it. The argument is that time has passed. Statutes of limitation (although they do not apply in this case) exist for a reason. Mr Polanski, 43 when he committed his crime, is now 33 years older. Whether or not he has “wrestled” with his past, he has been altered by the passage of time. So has society. It is troubling to admit, but Mr Polanski’s misdeeds date from an era when a lot of sexual predation was passed off as experimentation and self-expression, and ignored.