LONDON (Reuters) – When Richard Martinez goes to a nightclub or bar, he often goes alone.

But the 38-year-old former RAF officer wastes no time in heading for a target — a woman — to flirt with and flatter.

Martinez will not try too hard, but will allow himself to be drawn into conversation and, if asked, will give out his phone number for a potential future date.

Martinez is a “honey trapper” — or as he likes to call himself, an “integrity tester” — one of a growing team of private detectives who are hired by wives, husbands or partners to test the loyalty of their loved ones.

“It’s growing all the time,” he says of his business, the Expedite Detective Agency (www.ex-da.com), which charges 300 pounds ($588) for an integrity test on a potential cheat.

Martinez refutes accusations of marriage-wrecking, arguing that his customers come to him when they are already concerned about their partner’s fidelity or when rumors have led them to suspect an affair. But he admits around 80 percent of targets fail the test and turn out to be ready and willing to cheat on a partner.

Martinez and his colleagues — he has a team of male and female trappers, some more, some less attractive — record the whole “hit” on audio and video, so that the customer can see for themselves how the evening develops.

And Martinez has “rules of engagement”: The target must not be drunk, there must be no touching, and the relative attractiveness of the trapper to the target must be equal.

“It’s got to be a fair test,” he explains. “So we make sure that we don’t set a very attractive honey trapper on a not so attractive target, and vice versa.”

“The customer needs a fair answer to the question of whether their husband or girlfriend is loyal.”

Martinez says that while many of his customers may end their relationships, other use the honey trap to confront unfaithful lovers and appeal to them to change their ways.

“So we can also act as a deterrent,” he says. “The customer can say to their partner: ‘I caught you this time and I want you to change’ and they can warn that they will use the honey trap service in the future to test them again.”

He shrugs off criticism that he is fostering mistrust, and insists he is meeting a real need among British couples. But while Martinez is unashamed about what he does, other such detective agencies are more reticent.

At UK Honey Traps, a service based in Worcestershire in the heart of England and offering trappers across the country, they are not keen to talk.

“We don’t talk to journalists,” a spokesman there told Reuters by telephone. “It wouldn’t help our business.”

They are, however, looking for new recruits.

Under the vacancies section of their Web site, the detective service is on the look-out for “confident, bubbly, outgoing men and women with an ability to think on their feet.”

Becoming a honey trapper demands reliability, honesty and accuracy, it says, and because most of the trapping takes place outside office hours, it can offer “an ideal second career.”

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A Mississippi businessman must pay more than 750,000 dollars in damages to the man whose wife he wooed away, after the US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal in the case.

In 1997, Sandra Valentine began working for Jerry Fitch, a wealthy realtor and successful businessman.

When she gave birth to a daughter two years later, it quickly became apparent that her boss — not her plumber husband — was the baby’s father.

The couple divorced a short time later, after legal proceedings in which she acknowledged an adulterous relationship with Fitch, whom she tied the knot with a short time later.

But armed with the admission of adultery, betrayed ex-husband Johnny Valentine decided to sue Fitch, based on an antiquated Mississippi state law permitting a cuckolded spouse to seek damages for “loss of society, companionship, love and affection,” as well as “the loss of sexual relations.”

About a half dozen US states have similar “alienation of affection” laws on the book.

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld a jury verdict awarding some 750,000 dollars to Valentine.

Fitch, who decried the verdict as unconstitutional, “antiquated” and based on “medieval notions” about marriage and property, appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court which refused to overturn the verdict.

His appeal of last resort failed on Monday when the US Supreme Court declined to take up the case.

BEIJING (AFP) – The wife of a top sports anchor on Chinese state television has created a buzz in the blogosphere by crashing an Olympic media event — to publicly accuse her husband of adultery.

A video clip of Zhang Bin’s wife Hu Ziwei commandeering a microphone at a China Central Television (CCTV) presentation of its coverage plans was easily one of the most viewed items on Chinese video site tudou.com on Monday.

Friday’s event in Beijing was in order to rebrand CCTV’s sports channel as “The Olympic Channel” for the August 2008 Olympic Games hosted by the Chinese capital, but it quickly turned embarrassing for the state broadcaster.

“Today is a special day for The Olympic Channel, and a special day for Mr. Zhang Bin, and for me too,” said Hu, herself a presenter on another network.

“Because just two hours ago, I found out that besides me, Mr. Zhang Bin has been maintaining an improper relationship with another woman.”

Zhang could only stand by stone-faced as Hu went into details, fending off attempts to remove her from the podium.

Gossip about the private lives of television personalities is a hot topic among Chinese, and the incident touched off a flurry of blog entries.

China has been keen to project a flawless image for the Olympics, and the embarrassing clip was quickly removed from top internet video sharing web sites.