It should not need a judge to rule on women-only spaces

LIKE a pastel version of Reservoir Dogs, five women walked into court this week ready for battle.

- Sam Lister

Their legal fight will be one of the defining cases of the decade and will take four weeks to thrash out.

So what can be so complicated and challenging that the justice system must be deployed to reach a resolution?

No, it's not fair pay, or the right to keep your job if you have the temerity to get married or have a baby. Those battles were won long ago by equally courageous women who had to fight and fight and fight again.

This time the battle is over whether women should be forced to get undressed in front of men.

The finest legal brains will spend most of the rest of this year trying to work out the answer to this question.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds will be spent to decide this, when you, me and the postman could settle it in the next 30 seconds.

But the nurses in Darlington are being forced to take the matter to the courts because their employer, the NHS, seems to think the answer should be "yes". The women have filed the claim on the grounds of sexual harassment, discrimination, victimisation and breaches of the right to a private life.