ELECTRICAL goods specialist Maplin is a front for cottaging, it has emerged.

The chain of stores, which sell things that no woman will ever desire, provides the perfect excuse for discreet gay action.

Network engineer Stephen Malley said: “All the other excuses – walking the dog, checking the guttering, watching the J-League play-offs on Al Jazeera Sport – wear thin eventually.

“But tell the wife you’ve got to nip to Maplins for a phono audio to HDMI converter and she never asks any probing questions.”

Undercover police discovered the sex ring when an inquiry about high-performance graphics cards saw them ushered into the back where a naked man asked if they were after a positive or negative terminal.

After no more than 10 further visits to confirm their suspicions, the officers reported their findings.

Eleanor Shaw of Bristol, whose husband is a Maplin regular, said: “I knew he couldn’t need that many external hard drives. Deep down, I knew it.

“It even has pulsing disco lights in the window.”

A Maplin spokesman said: “I’m confused about this ‘sex with women’ people keep mentioning.

“Is it something like a four-pin male to 15-pin female adaptor? Because we do stock those.”