MEN involved in sex games at Scammonden face tricky questions at home after the crackdown took a new twist.
Police revealed today they are writing to the owners of cars they stop on roads around Scammonden Dam.
Many of the owners will be the wives of men who have been cruising the area . . . and have no idea their husbands had been there.
The letters will say the cars have been stopped in areas where sexual activity takes place.
Police said many sex-seekers have been scared off by the recent blaze of publicity.
The moorland around the dam has been plagued by men cruising around looking for sex.
Seedy websites have also advertised the spot as a place where people go dogging and piking.
This involves couples having sex in cars or completely outdoors while other people - often single men - stand around watching.
Letters to motorists are being sent after high visibility police patrols around Scammonden Dam earlier this month. Several cars were stopped on isolated roads around the dam.
There was no real need for anyone to use the narrow roads unless they live in the area, said police.
Most of the cars contained single men and some had child seats in the back, indicating they were family men.
The police clampdown came after a flurry of complaints from local residents, including one woman who saw two men having sex on the bonnet of a car when she was taking her two boys home from school.
People caught having sex in public face prosecution for outraging public decency or being a public nuisance.
This could result in court action and all the public shame and humiliation that will bring.
Insp Mark Broadhead, of Huddersfield police, said: "We have written to the registered keepers of all the cars we stopped one evening.
"The registered keepers are not always the people driving the cars. A man could be driving the car, but it may be registered in his wife's name."
He added: "The letters told the owner the car had been stopped and checked in an area where there have been complaints of inappropriate sexual activity."
He said beat officers were regularly patrolling the Scammonden area.
"Cars may be stopped at any time of the day or night," he said. "Letters will then be sent to the registered keepers."
One woman who lives near the dam said: "Things have quietened down an awful lot. There hasn't been a soul around in the early evenings since stories appeared in the Examiner."
She said she had got used to seeing the same cars cruising around the dam's car parks again and again - sometimes from 10 in the morning.
"But even they have vanished," she said. "We'll just have to see if it stays that way."
Anyone with information about the activities at Scammonden can contact Sgt Mick Semenczuk at Huddersfield police on 01484 436754.
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