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A British woman whose noisy sex sessions were officially branded anti-social behaviour was warned Friday she would face jail, if she fails to stop the excessively loud lovemaking.
Caroline Cartwright was given an eight week prison term suspended for 12 months -- meaning if she engages in over-noisy coupling again in the next year she will immediately be put behind bars.
"I've heard a very short extract of the noise you make and can well see that your neighbours would be upset and distressed by this," said judge Beatrice Bolton at Newcastle Crown Court.
Cartwright was served with a civil order over marathon romps with husband Steve, described in court as "unnatural" and "like they are both in considerable pain."
Neighbours at their home in Washington, south of Newcastle in northeast England, had complained about the noise -- as did passers-by and the postman.
Cartwright was served with an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo), but admitted at a previous hearing to having violated it almost immediately, and repeatedly, last April.
An anti-social behaviour order is a civil order made against people deemed to be a public nuisance, and is more typically issued for young delinquents using threatening behaviour, or disrupting the peace.
At an earlier hearing the court was told that the local council set up special equipment in a neighbour's flat and recorded noise levels of 30-40 decibels, peaking at 47 -- as loud as a conversation in the same room.
Cartwright told the court she had tried to restrain herself.
"I did not understand why people asked me to be quiet because to me it is normal," she said, adding: "I have tried to minimise the situation by having sex in the morning - not at night - so the noise was not waking anybody.
"I may be sympathetic to it, but it is not something I am doing on purpose."
On Friday the judge said: "An anti-social behaviour order was made against you in rather unusual terms," adding: "The difficulty here is that the first occurrence was the day following the order.
"Then three days later you breached it again. In addition it's quite clear from the small extract I heard that you made no attempt to silence yourself," added Bolton.
Passing the suspended sentence, the judge said: "It needs to be a prison sentence because you need to be deterred ... If you commit further offences of this nature that sentence will be passed and you will made to serve it."
