CHEATING women are dominating the workload of a private detective whose Caterham agency uncovers illicit affairs.
Since starting up in the town last autumn, about three-quarters of founder Laurence Hearn's workload has involved investigating the love lives of straying female partners.
And most of them, he has learned, are bored young mothers looking for some secret excitement in their lives.
Mr Hearn said that since forming Cheater UK in October, he has already investigated 18 cases – 13 of them commissioned by men who had doubts about the faithfulness of the women in their lives.
He said: "Most people might think it's men who would stray the most, with their notorious wandering eye.
"But in my experience it's 30-something women who I am mainly asked to track.
"A typical suspect will be a middle class mother with a young child, maybe who feels a little unloved as she's bringing up a toddler at home.
"Then she starts an affair with a man she meets, maybe at the gym or at her part-time job."
The 46-year-old runs the firm from his Caterham Hill home, mapping the path of suspects' cars on his personal computer after having attached a tracker device to the underside of their vehicles.
He also uses keytracker software so a suspicious partner can "spy" on what their other half has written in their e-mails or on their Facebook site.
Mr Hearn said suspects who had an extra-marital affair often followed familiar patterns of behaviour.
These include meeting their lovers in the same location each time, and getting careless by leaving the same repeated number on their mobile phones.
One of his investigations before Christmas involved a Caterham woman in her 30s.
Through vehicle tracking and surveillance, Mr Hearn discovered she was having daily liaisons with a mystery man in a town centre coffee bar. He subsequently followed her to a layby off the A22 Caterham Bypass, where the pair were spotted in an amorous clinch.
The private detective handed his dossier over to the suspicious husband, his work being complete.
Mr Hearn, a "happily married" father of five and a former BMW trader, was also a private detective in Oxfordshire in the 1990s.
He said he got into the profession after a bitter experience in his personal life: "I found out my first wife was having an affair behind my back. I was devastated.
"Not everyone will like what I'm doing – I've received a couple of phone threats from people who have been found out.
"But people who have been cheated on have a right to know."
