UK NEWS

THE INCRIMINATING TXT MSG

Text messages are now catching love cheats out

Thursday May 17,2007

By Geoff Maynard

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(0)

LOVE cheats are most likely to be caught by leaving saucy text messages on their mobile phones, a survey has revealed.

Half of all adulterers are now found out in this way, when suspicious partners scroll through their text messages looking for clues.

The old-fashioned method of rummaging through pockets to find tell-tale hotel receipts, or examining collars for signs of lipstick are over, according to research by a firm of divorce lawyers.

“I would say 50 per cent of all our adultery cases come about when cheating husbands and wives are caught out by carelessly leaving their lover’s texts on their mobile phones,” said Sean McNally, of family solicitors Ellis Jones, based in Bournemouth, Dorset.

The second most likely way of being caught is when careless cheats write amorous text messages to their lovers – but then press the wrong button and send them to their spouses instead.

“One flick of the hand – and there is sudden disaster within a marriage,” added Mr McNally.

The “extra secretive” philanderer tends to buy a “dedicated” phone for their affair. “They keep the phone at work and never take it home, ensuring to have the bill sent to a different address so their spouse knows nothing about it.
“But they come unstuck when they accidentally come home with it and it goes off.

“The spouse asks where the phone came from – then there will be a tussle and they will see the lover’s details on the phone.”

Among the firm’s clients, affairs caused 32 per cent of divorces in 2006.

Another survey has revealed that 61 per cent of extra-marital affairs start at work. In a poll of 2,000 employees by NW magazine, one in five women admitted to sleeping with their boss.

One in three, meanwhile, had had sex in the office, with some saying that compromising photographs were circulated among colleagues.