If you are caught having sex in public then it is possible that you will be charged with a criminal offence. The law and the punishment evoked as a result of breaking it will largely depend on the circumstances in which you are caught having sex. Whilst it is understandable that people can get carried away in the moment, it is also reasonable that there must be some kind of law protecting people, and particularly children, from witnessing such sexual acts.

There are several possible pieces of law that can be breached by having sex in public: notably The Sexual Offences Act, outraging public decency, and the Public Order Act. Common to all these laws is that is must be witnessed, or have been able to be witnessed, by somebody else. Apart from the obvious fact that it will be difficult to get caught if nobody has seen you having sex, the more pertinent point is that the law in this area is not designed to restrict two people having fun, but to protect people who may not want to witness it; therefore if nobody has witnessed the incident, nobody can have been caused any alarm and there is unlikely to be any punishment

It should be noted that these laws are in relation to England and Wales (with similar provisions in Scotland); if you go abroad, particularly to notoriously religious countries, these kinds of acts can result in far more severe punishments