Police called ‘to keep peace’ over paedophile sting
Officers accused of not taking sex crime seriously after vigilantes reported man for grooming
POLICE have spoken out about vigilante groups after officers in Greater Manchester were called out to “keep the peace” when a suspected paedophile was identified by a gang. A group calling itself Silent Justice contacted Greater Manchester Police (GMP) on Sunday evening after claiming to have tracked down a man who allegedly thought he was grooming a 12-year-old girl.
But after establishing that the incident had been part of a “sting” operation orchestrated by the group, police told those reporting the matter to leave the area.
GMP told the caller that as no child was at direct risk, officers would only be deployed when the resources became available.
However, the caller refused to leave and the video was posted online, leading to a large number of complaints to the police. Police were then deployed to the scene in order to “keep the peace” and a short time later a 22-yearold man was arrested on suspicion of inciting sexual activity with a child.
The incident has led to complaints that the police are failing to take such matters seriously. Chief Supt Neil Evans, the territorial commander for Oldham, said reports of sexual offences were taken “extremely seriously”. He insisted that the suspect was arrested as soon as the necessary resources became available.
He said that all reports were dealt with in accordance to the threat, risk and harm posed at that time.
In a statement, he said: “A 999 call was made to police about attempted online grooming at around 8.20pm on Sunday. The informant told the call handler they were outside the address of a man who had attempted to groom what he believed to be a 12-year-old girl. When it was established that this was a decoy and a child was not at immediate risk, the informant was advised to leave the location and make an official report to police in order for intelligence to be gathered and the appropriate action to be taken.”
The statement continued: “At the time this call came in, officers from Oldham were dealing with 10 other serious incidents which required an immediate response. I would like to make it clear that we take all reports of sexual offences extremely seriously. This is evidenced by the tireless work carried out by the Oldham Phoenix team.”
A spokesman for the Silent Justice group said GMP has received “hundreds” of complaints about the force’s handling of the incident.
The emergence of so-called “paedophile hunter” groups has led to concern about vigilante justice, but last week figures showed that almost half of all cases involving meeting children for sex after grooming used evidence gathered by such groups.