From July 27, 2005: Chessington’s randiest senior citizen fathered a record 38th child, this week 10 years ago.

Staff at Chessington World of Adventures, in Leatherhead Road, thought the sexual antics of its frisky, 50-stone sea lion Borris had come to an end.

But the sea lion, 87 years old in human years, did it again with the arrival of his 38th pup – much to the embarrassment of his sprightlier, slimmer and much younger love rival, 30-year-old Murphy.

Murphy was introduced to the sea lion group seven years earlier to take over the ageing Borris’ role as patriarch and father to the pups.

But Borris was far from ready to give up his active antics, and after fathering four pups by four different mothers within two weeks in 2003, he became the big daddy for the 38th time with the arrival of 13lb Ocean.

Keeper Will Elgar said: “At his age his sexually active days should be well and truly over, especially with a young stud in the group for competition.

“But the fact of the matter is that the ladies just can’t seem to resist him and poor Murphy just doesn’t have his pulling power.”

The Chessington team believed Borris’s reproductive success was a European record and put his virility down to his laid-back lifestyle and healthy fish diet.

Ocean was mum Pebble’s 11th pup and, as this particular breed of sea lion originated around the Ocean Bay area of California, the team decided to honour her pecking order in the pack with a cheeky tribute to Hollywood hit movie Ocean’s 11.

The birth of Ocean was the latest in a number of breeding successes at Chessington World of Adventures.

The previous year the park successfully united a hand-reared Sumatran tiger with her mate, as part of a programme to help stem the species’ extinction.

At the time there were an estimated 750 of the big cats left in the world.

10 YEARS AGO: July 27, 2005 Gun crime rose by 16 per cent in Kingston, the Metropolitan Police said. The British Crime Survey highlighted a worrying and increasing trend for the use of BB guns, which fire metal pellets, in the borough. There were 42 reported incidents in the previous year, up from 36 the year before that.

25 YEARS AGO: July 27, 1990 Home beat police officers in Hook and Chessington were being called out on potentially dangerous jobs with only one radio between them. The three constables, based with five others at Surbiton police station, had been unable to call for help after the radios were withdrawn three months earlier.

50 YEARS AGO: July 28, 1965 Letters began to disappear from telephone numbers and STD dialling codes, and were replaced by figures. This meant that in the London area and the other five big cities, where the first three letters of exchange names made up part of a subscriber’s number, these letter