Dangerous liaisons

EVERYBODY flirts occasionally. It's a normal, healthy, harmless part of human social interaction that rarely goes beyond a shared joke and a moment of eye contact over a drink after work.

Next time you find yourself flirting with an attractive member of the opposite sex, however, you should beware. You just might be about to fall into a honey trap.

A Harrogate firm has been advertising in job centres up and down the country for flirtatious men and women to work as "honey trap" agents. Their job? To "detect infidelity in personal relationships and report back".

The revelation has already provoked outrage, with accusations that The Honey Trap - as the firm is appropriately enough called - is deliberately setting out to entrap people and ruin their relationships.

But there's nothing wrong with what they do, insists Mark Ward, the merchant navy officer who is behind the company. "We're not in the business of breaking up happy, serious relationships," he says. "Only of exposing the unfaithful people or the liars. The dishonest people."

It's not as if he runs an escort service, he adds. Most of what his "operatives" do is simply observe people, then report back to their clients on what they saw. Occasionally they will be instructed to flirt - but it never goes beyond that, and there is strictly no touching.

But if that's the case, how do they know someone is being unfaithful at all? Just because someone enjoys flirting, it doesn't mean they're about to embark on a steamy affair.

"Everybody flirts," he agrees. "We only report back if it is very, very cut and dried. Just normal flirting, that isn't a problem. There has to be some sort of line that if they cross it...."

The Bradford girl who was one of 31-year-old Mark's first targets did that, presumably. Mark had been contacted by a businessman who was suspicious of his girlfriend. He and the man met up, Mark was shown a photograph of the girlfriend, then briefed to follow her on a night out in Bradford and see what she got up to.

She was, he says, a "very good-looking girl in her 30s, but not my cup of tea". That didn't deter him. He followed her into a bar. "She was having a good laugh, and as I walked up to the bar I heard her saying 'what I want is a few inches, and there is f...... yards of it out there.' Then she turned around and said: 'I'll start with you' and grabbed my crotch."

An oddly prim note creeps into his voice. "I was doing a job," he says. "So I removed her hand. I had a bit of a drink, she was flirting like mad, trying it on, trying to get physical with me. I stuck around for about 20 minutes, then made my excuses and left."

There is no doubt in his mind, he says, that her boyfriend had been right to be suspicious. That sounds pretty judgmental. Normally, he says, in their reports back to clients Honey Trap operatives simply give a factual account of what happened. But if asked, they will give their opinion. "We were there at the time," he says. "We will be 100 per cent honest."

They are not, however, in the business of gathering evidence for court cases, and they are not peeping toms. All they do is observe, usually in bars, and occasionally flirt, he insists.

It sounds as though he has a jaded view of human relationships. Has he ever been cheated on himself, and is that why he does what he does?

No, he insists. He's not married, and while he's had a number of girlfriends, he himself has never been 'stung'. But during his time as the navigation officer on what he calls a "famous cruise liner", he witnessed human behaviour at its worst.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing onboard when it came to people cheating on their boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives," he says.

"We all lived in close proximity with each other on the ship, with everybody living in cabins with wafer thin walls. The very fact that many people onboard were doing this made me wonder what was happening on land. It would be so much easier to get away with being unfaithful, since most couples are only together for an hour in the morning before work and a short spell at night before they sleep."

The statistics back it up, he insists. "I think something like half of people surveyed admit to having an affair. And one third of all marriages end in divorce in England."

It seems as if he's hell-bent on increasing that sorry statistic. Not at all, he says. If somebody is going to have an affair, they will do it whether or not someone tries to flirt with them. All the Honey Trap does is offer people the chance to test their partner's faithfulness, and get some peace of mind. "We don't say that you have to employ us," he says. "And there is nothing that makes me more happy than to report back that nothing has happened."

Like the time he was sent to Andorra for a week by a local businessman. "He had heard about us through his friends at a golf club," Mark, who lives in Harrogate, says. "He had a very attractive girlfriend, who was going to Andorra for a week with a girlfriend of hers. He paid me to go to Andorra to keep an eye on her."

And what happened? "I got a free skiing trip!" he says. "I followed her up the ski slope, and on nights out. She was flirting quite a lot, but it was all fairly innocent." Pity the man couldn't have trusted his girlfriend in the first place, then.

He's not the only one who doesn't seem to know what trust is, however. There is, Mark says, huge demand for The Honey Trap's services. He only set up the business a year or so ago, advertising in local papers in the Harrogate area. He received 12 calls straight away - most of them, interestingly, from men suspicious of their girlfriends. Now he has 50 operatives across the country - and is looking to recruit more.

So what type of person is he looking for? Men and women, gay and straight, of all ages over 18, who are intelligent, smart, confident and able to think on their feet, he says. Good looking? Most of the work they will have to do is just observing, he stresses. "But if a client calls and says I want you to flirt with my husband or wife, we need to use people who are quite attractive."

To find out more about The Honey Trap, visit www.thehoneytrap.net or call 07919 033673. The fee for the service is negotiable, but £70 is the average charge for a straightforward assignment.

Updated: 10:45 Friday, September 12, 2003