to think paedo hunter gangs aren't necessarily a good thing?

[GhostPerfume]

I am torn on this. I have a lot of friends who share these posts on facebook, I have never shared them and do not follow their pages.

I was sexually abused by a teacher growing up - I am in no way a paedophile sympathiser AT ALL. Just before someone comes on and flames me!

What worries me is the families of these people - they are often filmed at their family home. Also I tend not to watch the videos of the "stings" that people share but I watched one today as it was very local to me. The gang seemed to have a huge stack of evidence and they apprehended the suspect and called the police. It is what happened after that I am struggling with. They then spent the whole time until the police came repeatedly goading the offender. They kept repeating "We won't hurt you unless you hurt us/run away" But I felt like they were goading them into that. 4 of them standing round shouting and swearing, shouting if they didn't answer, then if they did answer they mocked the answer and said it was the wrong thing to have said. There is NOTHING the suspect can do to justify their actions, (rightly,they often admit it and there is no way they can have any reason)

Members of the public who comment saying to stop shouting and swearing in public get a mouthful from the gang threatening to put their faces on the live facebook feed, and whipping up crazy levels of anger from those watching online who then make threats to the passers by.

The gang seem to be made up of people who have had no official training at all.

On the other hand these "stings" often do result in prosecutions of the offender. The police do not have the man power/resources to do all this work. But the way they go about it really is getting OTT, swaggering about shouting "we are on a sting FUCK off anyone who doesn't agree is a paedo sympathiser"

I can share the link to the one that was near me that I mean where they seemed to be repeatedly goading the man into wanting him to fight so they could have a reason to batter him. Not sure if I am allowed to share the link. (The man was admitting it and IMO is an utterly VILE human who deserves prison) but they could have stood quietly with him while waiting for police instead it was them screaming and shouting and causing a huge scene.

I think the fact that anyone who disagrees with them has to clarify they don’t support paedophiles (does anyone???? Except for other paedophiles) says a lot about the mob mentality of these groups.

I’m a mother, of course I don’t empathise with beasts. I also don’t empathise with vigilantes.

The neighbourhood would find out your husband/partner/father etc was a paedophile through the local news most likely, sometimes the national news so the ‘paedo hunters’ aren’t really putting the family through any extra heartache or risk.

I don’t necessarily agree with them either though. I don’t appreciate living in a vigilante culture and if the police were sufficiently funded, it wouldn’t be necessary.

These groups are usually knuckle dragging thugs who enjoy the confrontation, drama and excitement. That Wolf Pack one planning the demo in Forfar should be ashamed of themselves, terrifying the neighbourhood and threatening to chuck bricks.

I used to think they were doing a good thing.

Then I married a policeman and he explained the negatives. Hunter gang exposes paedophile. Share info on social media. Police get case to court, judge rules no chance of fair trial because of social media exposure and he gets off.

Rest hear gangs are on look out and disappear further underground so harder for police to track down.

I dont want to live in a society where vigilantes act as judge, jury and possibly executioner. No matter how much I hate paedophiles I think this is a greater danger.

We have someone who's downloaded CatA images in our local community .... Wife standing by and kidsat our local school...obvs it's all a terrible mistake...3 cat A and at least 730 cat C .....bloody Internet explorer and it's problems .. . Don't think he'll be doing school drop off!!!! Dirty fucking animal!!!!!!

IceBearRocks how is he allowed anywhere near a school! Surely there are some kind of conditions attached no?

Nottingham (I think) police were on the radio last week saying they were opening dialogue with Paedo Hunter Groups because they (the police ) viewed them in the same way you would look at Neighbourhood Watch - which apparently is a type of vigilantism (according to the police) and they are looking to co-opt them in - and lets be honest, it saves some police salaries if you have a load of busybodies trawling the internet.

Not unsurprisingly, not all forces agreed with this view .

Obviously NC for this.

My ex partner (father of one of my DCs). was 'caught' by one of these. I have no idea if he was guilty or not but I do know (having done a lot of research) that a lot of this 'evidence' can be faked. I'll never know if he was guilty or not because not long after he committed suicide.

The 'hunter' in this case didn't even call the police. He'd put the video and 'evidence' online and then waited until someone recognised the man and called the police themselves. Then the police would have to go to him and ask him for the 'evidence'. And this wasn't a one off by any means.

At one point I was quite outspoken about this 'hunter' and said I disagreed with him putting it all online. His response was to find out my name and where I lived and put that online too. Then there were people threatening me and trying to find me.

That's the sort of person he really is. Claims to be protecting children but put mine directly in danger because I dared to disagree with him.

The problem (according to 24 hours in police custody) is that they can't be prosecuted because they can't be given a fair trial as the jury could be said to have been influenced by social media.

If they really cared about convicting then they would hand their evidence to the police until after the trial.

YeTalk....I hope not he's SOR...but still lives very close

No, they are not a good thing. I was a victim too and I cannot condone this behaviour, for so many reasons. Where to begin? Live streaming footage may prejudice an investigation/trial, they could have the wrong person, their (usually innocent and unaware) families can be targeted, etc. That’s just to start with. We have a legal process for very good reason.

Also if they really want to help I remember hearing of crowd sourcing to identify where clothes and toys come from to track down gangs

I think they’re awful. We had one caught out in our town. They went to his house and had his wife caught on camera. The poor woman had her life torn apart and a lot of people commenting were slagging her off! Saying she looked relaxed and she must of known what he was up to. To me she just seemed like a rabbit caught in headlights.

If they are that concerned about catching an actual paedo, get the evidence and pass it to the police.

The town properly had its pitchforks out.

I just cant get worked up about them, sorry. In an ideal world there would be no need for them. But we dont live in an ideal world. The ones I have read about seem to rely on entrapment by pretending to be a child online. They dont need to fake anything because there are plenty of the more stupid paedos online on the lookout for what seems like a vulnerable child to prey on. I just wish that there was finances for people to be paid to do this properly and above board. Or they just have a list of known sexual offenders and where about roughly they stay. Perhaps if the law started punishing sexual predators appropriately (locking them up and throwing away the key imo) then there wouldnt be a need for such groups.

There are organised groups in America where they gather evidence online via decoys then hand it over to the police. That’s useful. The fact that these guys feel the need to confront and stream it on Facebook tells you everything you need to know.

But what they do often prevents these men from being prosecuted

@OutPinked I agree, I just think there's a slight difference between someone finding something out on the news once someone has been found guilty and prosecuted and the family have had time to get their heads round it (the police will likely have a liaison officer assigned to them to deal with the backlash, should there be any), compared to finding out at the same time as everyone else, having their peers access the video of their (probably) father being busted, having the conversations read out loud. I just can't imagine what this would do to an adolescent.

They're a really bad thing. I'd be pretty much as scared of my son being targeted by one of these groups as i would of him being targeted by a paedophile tbh.

Wannabe 'heroes'..... a bloody nuisance. They get a kick out of it and I'm not sure their motives are right.
I've heard the police say they have sometimes ruined months of undercover operations and been responsible for paedophiles escaping justice. I'm suspicious of men who are always ranting about paedophiles.

I think they’re really, really wrong. No necessarily about it. I agree that they are self serving. I think they’re not in any way seeking justice for victims, but lock on to paedophiles as they’re unquestionably socially unacceptable. I think they’d go for whoever they can feel superior to. It’s fuelled by gossip and armchair outrage. I doubt it changes anything for the victim or the perpetrators. Possibly drives perpetrator more underground. It’s subject to error and mob rule. I feel very strongly they are not a good thing at all.

Dont We aren't grateful at all in our area. I could understand if they forwarded what info they had but the live streaming on fb is dangerous and there will be serious injury or death at some point as a result of these stings.

Some of them are so aggressive it's unbelievable. I will never agree with their actions. Pass it to us and let us deal.

NC that's dreadful for you all and I'm sorry about your experience.

Nope not a good thing at all and it helps drive these people further underground - there is a reason why the police have training. If people genuinely want to help then the police should be harnessing it in the same way we have special constables so people have training and are supervised. There is also a high risk they could get the wrong person - one group muddled paediatrician and paedophile and runining lives - imagine seeing your father being caught and is actually innocent - no one will remember that bit.
However the vast majority of us will be living alongside one. (The statistic is 1 to 2% of the male population according to a couple of reports I’ve read.) We need more funding so that our children and young people and their parents are fully educated to the dangers of online (a school I worked at had a really informative presentation from our local PSCOs which unfortunately they didn’t have time to repeat in subsequent years but much more effective coming from them) and also our probation service needs funding properly so that these people can be properly supervised. (Unfortunately probation service cuts don’t attract the same headlines as the NHS despite the fact it would keep us much safer if they had reasonable caseloads and time to do their job.)

The whole reason we have laws is to avoid mob rule. The people who like the idea of vigilantes: you’d feel different if YOU were wrongly accused and in fear of your life.