Wife breached asbo by having noisy sex (From The Northern Echo)

Wife breached asbo by having noisy sex

2:20pm Tuesday 15th December 2009 in

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A WOMAN pleaded guilty today to breaching a sex Asbo three times.

Caroline Cartwright, 48, and her husband Steve were hit with a noise abatement notice after neighbours, the local postman, and a woman taking her child to school complained about their noisy lovemaking.

However, when Cartwright was convicted of breaching the notice, magistrates made her the subject of an anti-social behaviour order as well.

Cartwright pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court today to breaching the Asbo three times in April 2009.

Earlier this year Cartwright appealed against her conviction for breaching the noise abatement notice and the issuing of the Asbo, which bans the couple from "shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance".

She used Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to argue she had a right to "respect for her private and family life".

Jobless Cartwright, who lost her appeal against the order, also claimed that she could not help making the loud noise during sex with her husband.

The hearing heard that the Cartwrights' nightly sex sessions at their home in Hall Road, Concord, Washington, Tyne and Wear, were making their neighbours lives hell.

Their lovemaking was described as "murder" and "unnatural" and drowned out their neighbours' televisions.

Neighbours said the Cartwrights' sex sessions would usually start around midnight and last for two or three hours, every night of the week.

Specialist equipment installed in a neighbour's flat by Sunderland City Council recorded noise levels of between 30 to 40 decibels, with the highest being 47 decibels.

Giving evidence Cartwright said she was unable to control the noise she made during sex.

"I did not understand why people asked me to be quiet because to me it is normal. I didn't understand where they were coming from," she said.

"I have tried to minimise the situation by having sex in the morning - not at night - so the noise was not waking anybody.

"I maybe sympathetic to it but it is not something I am doing on purpose."

Breaching an Asbo carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment but Judge Beatrice Bolton said Cartwright, who now lives in a bail hostel, would not face jail.

She adjourned the case until next year for sentencing and released Cartwright on bail.