Sex in the Suburbs: Sordid side of beauty spots

It sounds like an ordinary club, a group of like-minded friends getting together. But this is one of the West Midlands' most notorious places for dogging.

"They come from all over the place – you get people with no money or job, people with a mansion and a BMW and everything in between," says one man who has turned up to such a meeting. It's about 10.30pm on a rainy Friday night at a secluded car park on Cannock Chase and the man speaking is a 52-year-old construction manager sitting alone in his car in the darkness.

He is waiting for the opportunity to catch a glimpse of strangers having sex and maybe join in himself. Who are these people, these married couples, bereaved lovers and others who have seemingly normal lives but feel the need to drive for miles at night to watch other people having sex somewhere they should not?

What makes someone want to run the risk of being caught, humiliated in a public court room and fined or worse for the sake of a few minutes of gratification?

The answer to that second point may lie in the complexities of the legal system. It is illegal to have sex in a public place, but prosecutions can only happen if the police catch the culprits in the act. Dogging is something that relies on people watching out for each other, posting lookouts.

A popular misconception has been that it

relates to dog walkers.

When the swinging scene discovered that open-air sex had its own special thrill, they began meeting in car parks and the doggers found a new and rich supply of voyeuristic entertainment. Cannock Chase is an area of outstanding natural beauty, popular with families who come to spot flocks of deer. At night, an entirely different kind of person flocks here, from as far as Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, although it has also spread to the day as well.

Wildlife crime officer Pc Pete Clarke invited the Express & Star to see the issues first-hand.

Some of the more ordinary parts of his job would include catching people that would hunt wild animals with dogs, bait badgers or interfere with the nests and eggs of rare birds.

Tonight, however, is a search for an altogether different kind of wild activity. He is in an unmarked police car at Ansons Bank car park – or as he explains, the main 'dogging arena'.

Pulling into the car park, there are two parked vehicles facing in the same direction and two men's faces become clear when they are lit up by the headlights from the plain-looking police car.

Pc Clarke explains that men can come here and sit for hours waiting for a couple in a car to arrive.

Their patience is the same as fishermen or photographers trying to capture an image of wildlife.

Pc Clarke says he is in the 'show car' spot, facing the other two vehicles, adding: "Let's wait here 10 minutes."

After several minutes and no movement from either of the men, Pc Clarke drives over to one of the cars opposite, the one containing the construction manager, from Burntwood.

The man will not give his name but admits to regularly driving up to the Chase on Fridays and Saturdays in an attempt to go dogging.

"I've been doing it 15 or 20 years," he says. "I started after I lost my girlfriend, she had a heart attack. As far as I'm concerned we are not really doing any harm to anybody. When you see an internal light, that indicates game on.

"There are a lot of people that think there's a couple in the car and go over.

"As far as I'm concerned, I want to be invited. You go over, they either turn the light off and buzz off or are having a play and you join in."

Although there are still real concerns by police, he said dogging was not as popular as it once was on the Chase years ago.

"There's a lot of reasons I guess – the internet, the police coming down, kids coming up here. One of them in a camper van got sprayed with paintballs. I have been egged a couple of times," he says.

"Ten years ago you could get 20 cars on here on a Friday and Saturday night. Five years ago it was probably 10 and it just got less and less."

There are several other car parks and lay-bys nearby which are reportedly used by doggers and we come across more parked cars while exploring them. There is a single male driver in most of them, but not everyone claims to be there for the purpose of dogging.

One man gives the excuse that he is meeting a woman there after work and then is 'just going to leave'.

And despite a couple starting to kiss each other as we pull up next to them, they claim they are there to 'spend 10 minutes away from the kids'.

But the next single man we come across has no trouble admitting what he was there for.

The 53-year-old, who is a baker by trade, had travelled to the Chase from Stoke-on-Trent for the first time since last Easter. "On and off, I've been dogging 13 years. I was just curious to start with," he says.

"I get down here when I can. It can be once a week or once every six months.

"I'm single but there are people who come here who are married and in relationships.

"It was known as couple's corner in the good days." he claims, nodding across to the left of where he was parked.

"Five years ago, there would be six cars parked there. On a Saturday night they used to come from all over the country. I've only had a one per cent success rate in the last six years of seeing anything. In the heyday, from the late 1990s to 2004, it used to be brilliant. I'd be successful every weekend with seeing something and you could probably join in."

But he also claims regular doggers still visited the spot, adding: "There's Stuart and Sue, Warren who used to come in a transit van, a couple whose nicknames are Rum and Coke." Another regular apparently goes by the name of Martin and spends hours up at the site in his van, which has a bed in the back and a video camera on the roof.

And Pc Clarke says hundreds are known to visit the Chase for this purpose over a week-long period, with men most likely to visit during the daytime and both couples and men on their own coming at night.

Officials figures have shown that dogging at Cannock Chase was found to be on the increase last year, with more than 100 people a week involved in lewd activities at the beauty spot – from as early as 9am.

Yet despite the sordid nature of their activities, it is actually the litter that is the main concern for the police.

Doggers are known to leave behind used contraceptives and dirty tissues which could be a potential health risk.

Then there are concerns that families with young children could end up seeing exhibitionists in the act.

The internet is awash with websites where people describe their experiences of going dogging on Cannock Chase, the various thrills it gives them akin to a club describing going mountain biking or orienteering.

But it is far from wholesome fun and something the police are having to spend precious time and resources to keep under control.

To tackle dogging, police launched Operation Muttley in April 2012. Appropriately, it was named after the cartoon dog in Wacky Races.

Covert patrols and even CCTV have been used to try to dissuade couples from using the Chase. It is a round the clock battle for the police.

"They start at 9am and it goes on into the early hours," Pc Clarke said.

"A lot of the stuff is arranged on the internet beforehand. They will use various websites.

"They come from all walks of life. You see company cars, ropey old cars, new Jags. There are normal everyday folk up there who you wouldn't expect."

He added that those involved are urged to be discreet about what they do.

"We respond to people's concerns and will hand out leaflets to them encouraging them to clean up their rubbish and be discreet." he said.

And its not just Cannock Chase that dogging takes place. Beauty spots across the Midlands are used including Barr Beacon in Walsall.

Train station car parks have also provided meeting points for those who like to indulge in exhibitionism.

The families and commuters who use these sites in the day would be horrified to find out what is going on there when darkness descends - and sometimes even before.

And according to Pc Clarke those who head to Cannock often do so with their other half.

He said: "We told people originally we would record their registrations and send a letter home, which was meant to embarrass them, but a lot of people up there were with their wives."

Anyone with concerns about dogging on Cannock Chase should contact Staffordshire Police on 101.