Couple in court over 'graveyard sex'

A couple from East Oxford were caught romping naked in a churchyard in full view of pupils and staff outside a school, a court heard. Andrew Donaldson and Karen Waters, of Divinity Road, stripped off before having sex between the headstones in the graveyard. Pupils at Reigate Grammar School took pictures on their mobile phones. The sex session was also witnessed by prospective parents attending an open day at the Surrey school in April last year.

The school’s public relations manager Hannah Graydon told Guildford Crown Court yesterday that she was “shocked and worried” by what she saw. She said: “I was about 10 metres away when I saw a couple lying down. They weren’t wearing any clothes but there were a couple of gravestones in the way. I could clearly see the male but not the lady, as he was lying on top of her.” When asked why she thought they were having sex, she replied: “It looked like they were having sex.”



Mrs Graydon saw the couple from a path next to the churchyard which runs between the school’s two sites in the middle of the afternoon on April 22 last year. Jill Beale, prosecuting, said IT teacher Peter Townsend saw pupils standing at a window laughing at the couple. Mrs Graydon called the police. The first officer on the scene found Waters, 42, wearing jeans and a bra and 41-year-old Donaldson wearing only his boxer shorts. The pair were both arrested.

The court was told that Waters answered “no comment” when she was interviewed, but handed police a prepared statement in which she claimed the pair were simply sunbathing. She said she had her knickers and bra on at all times. Donaldson, who police decided was too drunk to speak to initially, was not interviewed until the following day. He then claimed that he had been sunbathing while wearing his boxer shorts. Donaldson and Waters both deny two charges of outraging public decency. The trial continues.