Doggers put off by trimmed bushes at sex lay-by

A cafe owner who is based in a busy lay-by, which has been blighted by lewd sexual activity, claims the pruning of trees and bushes in the area is helping to alleviate the problem. Police began patrolling two lay-bys off the A43, near Hannington, after a mother and her young daughter said they saw naked men cavorting in public and performing sex acts on each other. The victim, who was driving back to her home in Kettering, said she was distraught after witnessing the daytime spectacle, alongside her four-year-old child.

Locals said that men “cruised” the lay-bys at all times of the day and night, meeting for sex in nearby woods, in cars, in the open – a practice known as dogging – and in camper vans. Police then stepped up patrols in the area, arresting two men, aged 23 and 56, for indecent behaviour a few days later. Northamptonshire County Council has since begun cutting back trees and foliage on the roadside in an attempt to make the area more accessible for motorists.



The owner of the Neil’s Nosh cafe, on the northbound lay-by, said the trimming of bushes around the entrance to the pull-in had helped drive away unwanted “doggers”. He said: “There is certainly not the volume of cars around. The number of people at the top of the lay-by has certainly gone down. When I used to leave here in the afternoon there used to be 10 or 12 cars parked up there. Now there is often none. I am delighted they have done it. It is like a dark alley, if you can’t see what is down it you don’t want to go into it.”

However, on the other side of the road, eyewitnesses claimed the problem had not gone away. Workmen were cutting back foliage on the southbound lay-by yesterday, but locals said doggers – who are usually men in the cars – now simply walked along a public footpath to get away from the main road. The area remained strewn with used condoms, empty bottles of lubricant and even had a women’s bra dangling from a tree. One eyewitness said: “It is still going on. It hasn’t stopped. They just go to different places and it is still the same people every day.”