Catcher caught and caged
A lot can change in a year.
If anyone should be able to relate to that, it is Connor Bevins.
He was best known in April 2018 as the Palmy Creep Catcher, on a quest to keep Palmerston North’s children safe from sexual predators.
He laid traps online, luring alleged paedophiles into public so he could confront, film and expose them.
Fast forward a year and his vigilante crusade has ended with only one man in jail – himself.
Bevins shielded his face as he was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court yesterday to two years and eight months in jail for offences under the Harmful Digital Communications Act.
It is the harshest penalty since the act became law in 2015.
His victims and their families watched from the public gallery as his lawyer told the court how Bevins had struggled to live with himself since his arrest.
One of his victims had died in a suspected suicide and others had called crisis helplines, the court heard.
Judge Jim Large said Bevins’ actions were vindictive, cruel and premeditated, and vilified innocent people on social media, the most public forum on the internet.
‘‘You decided what you thought they were. You were effectively judge, jury and executioner.
‘‘Vigilante law in New Zealand is not how our law works.’’
In a letter read to the court, Bevins said he thought about his victims each day.
‘‘I can’t imagine what they have been through... I want to say sorry.’’
All his offending took place in less than a month, all spawned from a strong motive – preventing people ending up like himself.
When interviewed by Stuff in April 2018, Bevins said he was a victim of sexual abuse.
His life was going well before he started Palmy Creep Catchers – he had a job and a girlfriend – but things fell apart because he never properly dealt with his past. ‘‘I just kept having that thought in my head because I didn’t talk to anyone about it.’’
He took notice of the Surrey Creep Catchers, a Canadian group formed with the aim of outing alleged paedophiles.
Bevins followed the Surrey model, making fake profiles on dating apps and websites such as NZ Dating and Grindr, posing as an underage child despite the apps and websites requiring users to be 18 or older.
He arranged to meet the people he matched with, picking places such as parks, shopping malls and fast food restaurants.
He filmed every encounter, hitting record while walking to the meeting spot and giving a description of the target.
He was always brief and to the point when he shoved the camera in his target’s face.
‘‘Hi I’m Palmy Creep Catchers and you’re here to meet an underage girl for sex.’’
Things then went one of two ways. Either the target would take off, or they would talk.
If they ran, Bevins chased them, telling them he had chat logs of what was said between the ‘‘minor’’ and the target. Occasionally, he verbally abused them.
He yelled at bystanders, saying he was ‘‘Palmy Creep Catchers’’ and the man he was following was a paedophile.
The videos were posted to Youtube and a Facebook page Bevins set up.
The Facebook page, deleted soon after his arrest in April 2018, attracted hundreds of comments, likes and followers.
Catching was a vexing process for Bevins. He told Stuff he knew what he was doing was wrong.
‘‘I don’t want to be a vigilante. I just want these people down.’’
Police told him his methods did not meet their strict standards, but he was adamant he had to keep going.
But he did no research into the best way to ‘‘catch’’, or even if it was legal.
He was willing to go to jail, boasting he would get someone to take up the moniker of Palmy Creep Catcher while he was inside.
‘‘I won’t let it stop.’’
All his videos courted controversy, but one particularly polarised his Facebook fan base.
Published as a two-part video, it showed Bevins meeting a person with a brain injury in The Plaza shopping mall in Palmerston North.
It is an awkward, painful encounter to watch, starting in the food court and moving to the car park.
All the way through the target talks, and talks, and talks.
Bevins keeps asking questions, keeps the conversation flowing. The camera keeps rolling.
He copped a lot of flack on his Facebook page, people arguing over if it was right to show a clearly ill person in that light.
As Bevins continued his crusade, his tactics changed.
People started joining him on stings, most of them wearing shirts emblazoned with ‘‘Anti-p Ministry’’ and armed with smartphones capable of video.
One night-time encounter resulted in Bevins nearly being dragged by a car down the road, after he opened the front passenger’s door of a target’s vehicle and put his foot inside.