Grahame Bond, the hotel’s multimillionaire owner, had hired his 30-room house out for £9,000 to a Dutch company who planned to host a private party, charging guests £65 a ticket. When a convoy of BMWs, Aston Martins and Porsches swept up the driveway on Saturday evening and disgorged their masked occupants, staff assumed they were dealing with a fabulously well-attired fancy-dress party.

But at the stroke of midnight, the atmosphere suddenly changed. “We began the evening by serving the guests Kir Royals and the champagne flowed,” Mr Bond recalled yesterday. “There was a man – the party organiser – telling guests in a loud voice that they were all under a spell. Then, at the stroke of midnight, he told them that if they kissed a guest the spell would be broken. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It suddenly turned into a scene from Eyes Wide Shut.”

Wherever Mr Bond and his dumbfounded staff looked, they could see revellers indulging in group sex. “Everywhere there were couples having sex,” he said. “Over the banisters alone I counted four couples at it.”