YNOT – Despite public outcry, police in a British community have determined men who have sex in their cars and the woods surrounding a highway rest area in Ipswich are breaking no laws.“It’s not illegal and they are not committing any offenses, and I don’t know of anyone who has come across anyone in compromising or embarrassing positions in the woods,” Police Inspector Steve Gallant told the Evening Star newspaper.
Local residents are concerned about the number of cars parked in the area at odd times. They say inappropriate behavior at the “lay-by” has increased markedly in the wake of police action to drive illicit trysts out of a nearby parking lot used by families.
Residents are particularly discomfited, they say, by memories of the A45 rest stop’s gruesome past. Just yards away, “Suffolk Strangler” Steve Wright dumped the bodies of two of his five prostitute victims in the 1990s. Residents do not want history to repeat itself.
Police have reassured locals the men who use the parking area and frequently are seen coming and going down a small path into the woods “pose absolutely no danger.”
“We have never had any reports of people being propositioned,” Gallant told the Evening Star, adding that most of the men involved want to keep their same-sex rendezvous under wraps for family reasons. “The profile of the men using that site is such that the last thing they want to do is to be caught. Most of them are married people with an outside interest.
“We are aware of what goes on, we patrol the area, but at this moment in time we are not actively seeking to dissuade people.”
Although gay sex in the park is within the bounds of the law, littering is not—and that’s what the police would like to discourage. They have begun posting messages to gay cruising websites urging men to keep the area clean by properly disposing of used tissues and condoms.
