Police resigned to working with ‘paedo hunters’

POLICE forces may have to work with vigilante “paedophile hunters”, one of Britain’s most senior officers has admitted, after it emerged that almost half of trials for meeting a child following sexual grooming use their evidence.

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the national lead for child protection at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said forces will “potentially have to look at” cooperation with the groups, who pose as children online to catch potential sexual predators.

He said that the groups “are putting the lives of children at risk”, and added: “I’m not going to condone these groups and I would encourage them all to stop. But I recognise that I am not winning that conversation.”

When asked whether police could work with vigilantes, he told the BBC: “I think that’s something we’re going to have to potentially look at, yes, but it comes with some real complexity.”

Senior officers have previously said vigilante groups should not take the law into their own hands, and warned that they could jeopardise police investigations. But figures obtained by the BBC show an increase in cases where evidence gathered by paedophile hunters is being used. More than 44 per cent (114 of 259) cases of the crime of meeting a child following sexual grooming used this evidence in 2016, compared to 11 per cent of cases in 2014 (20 out of 176 cases).

Tyneside-based duo Dark Justice claim on their website to have helped secure the arrest of 119 potential sex offenders and the convictions of 53, of which 30 were given custodial sentences.

Earlier this year, a pair of so-called “paedophile hunters” were arrested by police, when a sting set up by a group called The Hunted One turned violent, and two people were charged with public order offences.

Their target, Mirza Beg, 29, was jailed at Maidstone Crown Court in August for 40 months after he turned up with condoms at a shopping centre believing he was meeting a 14-year-old girl. The Hunted One said they will no longer carry out live stings as they did not want “cases and evidence ruined after all our hard work”.