INSIDE WALES’ PAEDOPHILE VIGILANTES
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Knowing we’re underage doesn’t deter men’
WALES’ only paedophile hunting group have revealed how they catch sexual predators online and try to tackle child exploitation on the internet.
Set up in May, Newport-based group Petronus is run by three people – including founder and legal expert Will* and mum Jo* – after they had been victims of child sex abuse when they were younger.
The trio see this as their way of trying to help others after their ordeals.
Their actions have already led to the conviction of three men who tried to meet up with underage girls for sex and several more are set to face court next month.
Each sting – the act of catching a paedophile – starts with a conversation online.
Every Petronus hunter makes a profile and puts it on various chat sites. When a conversation gets sexual, which it often does very quickly, they immediately state their age. But that doesn’t deter many.
Jo explained: “What we tend to do is set up a profile using an adult’s face – we have permission to do that, we have people who agree to do that – and we put the profile on chat sites or apps on my phone.
“I tend to get people to come into KIK messenger, but I know other people do different methods.
“The adult always approaches us first, we never approach them. As soon as they start talking to us, we tell them our age, which can range from 11 to 15. There are other groups who have used people who are a lot younger than that.
“As soon as we say our age, they should stop talking to us. The majority of them don’t. We just pursue the conversation with them then. They keep chatting to us and it can range from what they’re doing in the day to all of a sudden a picture of a penis sent through.”
But the group has to make sure it stays within the law in order to secure a conviction.
Steps like ensuring the paedophile makes contact first and letting them ask about meeting first make sure they have a better chance of getting a conviction.
Will, who founded the group and was a police officer for 11 years, said: “We’ve got to be very careful in how we talk to these men. We have to be quite passive with them – we can’t lead in any way. They always approach us.
“From the moment that happens, they’re told the age of the girl or boy. The conversation is led by them all the way through. “At the end of the day, the girls put their conversations where I can see them. If there’s anything that needs to be changed or the direction needs to be changed, I’ll talk them through it.” And he said working with local police forces, especially Gwent, has helped them boost their chance of securing more convictions by directing them. He said: “They’ve given us some pointers of where they want us to go. For instance, every time the conver- sation gets sexual, we reiterate how old the child is.”
As soon as a place to meet is agreed, the hunters strike.
Jo said: “As soon as they say they want to meet up, we try to control that – the meeting place and the time and date. We try to get them to travel to us. But we always try to control where and when that meet will take place. Obviously, we’ve got families and I’ve got to arrange childcare.
“It could be as quick as a day. We had a case last month where he arranged to drive up from Swindon, book himself into a Premiere Inn in Cwmbran and arranged a meet that evening. But it could take months.
“We’ve done a lot of research before the meet happens to make sure who they are, if there’s any past history. When they turn up at the meet place, we have a photograph. We try and check that everything is as it should be.
“When we approach, I’ll generally be on the phone to the police. We have a folder full of chat logs and we go up and approach them.
“Generally, they kind of accept that they’ve been caught. They always do.
“They say they’ve been depressed or they thought she was over 18. We’ve had one who said he’d been catfished. They always come out with some wild excuse.
“They are really compliant. They’ll stand there and chat and try and have a laugh with you. There’s nowhere really, they can go to because they’ve come to us, we’ve got control of that situation.
“We’ll take the car keys off them – we just ask and they give them. And the same with the phones. We haven’t got any power to take it off them, but if you ask they give.”
Jo said she started hunting after being a victim of child abuse herself.
She said: “I’ve got a child now and it’s just something I feel I need to do. And I’m quite good at doing it.”
Will was also a victim of child sexual abuse when he was younger.
The team has already had three convictions and many more perpetrators who have pleaded guilty. More cases are planned to be heard in court in August.
One of Jo’s latest convictions was a married man who was caught trying to meet a 14-year-old girl for oral sex.
Mark Pritchard, 42, pleaded guilty to sexual grooming at Newport Crown Court on Tuesday, July 25, after he was caught by the team trying to meet up with the underage girl.
The court heard that his marriage had broken down, leaving him “distressed” and “socially isolated” and he had made contact with the girl on a messaging app.
After arranging to meet at a pub in Malpas at 9.30pm, Pritchard panicked and went back home to Cwmbran.
But he was followed by the team and “detained” before agreeing to attend Cwmbran police station where he was arrested.
He is one of hundreds of men chatting to the hunters.
Jo says she has about 200 men wanting to talk to her – with more adding to the list every day.
She said: “At the moment, I’m actively speaking to nine men, but I have got over 200 in my back-up.
“I get about an extra eight every day.
“I’ve been on a site called Kiss Chat – within five minutes I had 70 men trying to chat to me, and they all know I’m underage.”
But the group want to start working with police to secure more convictions and get tighter control on rogue hunter groups who do live stings – meetings streamed live over the internet.
Only recently, Gwent Police Crime Commissioner Jeff Cuthbert said he believes police should be working more with groups like Petronus – named after the protection spell in the Harry Potter books – in the fight against online child exploitation.
He said: “It is important that police forces work closely in partnership with their communities to get the evidence they need and of course the police are best placed to investigate and bring people to justice.
“However, we recognise that other groups exist who are intent on playing what they see as their part in combating abuse and that they will continue to do so. Indeed, such groups have been involved in a significant number of criminal convictions.
“I understand in this and many other aspects of crime or anti-social behaviour that there is often an im- patience and I can understand that people want to get on with things.
“What we don’t know, of course, is how many potential perpetrators have got away with it because it’s not been done properly or walked away because it’s not stood up in court, so it’s a question of balance.
“We need to find a way to ensure that this type of activity is carried out as safely as possible, with appropriate focus on minimising the risks to the volunteers and the subjects of their activity, while maximising the chance of getting a conviction. It can be very risky if these groups are operating in isolation.
“Locally, I would encourage members of these groups to become special constables or police volunteers so as to mediate that risk and to ensure they have the right training and skills to carry out this work safely. Working within the policing framework, with their assistance and support, is the best way forward.”
As well as calling for more regulation to stop ‘rogue’ hunters, Will agrees, saying the police are just too busy to put the time in needed to catch the predators.
He said: “They don’t have resources to do it.
“They’re too busy dealing with reactive cases and historic cases. They’re up to their necks in that.
“Mr Cuthbert, he’s saying the same thing – that we need to pull everyone together now and allow us to do this on the basis that we’re doing it, polish it up a little bit more in terms of regulation and give us more help. We’re turning that corner now.”
Former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency Jim Gamble agrees, and suggested that 1,500 volunteers be drafted in to try to help – costing around £2m a year.
But Will says there’s a simpler solution.
He said: “Gamble has his ideas of 1,500 special constables and my own view of it is that for the amount of money you’re spending on training, 1,500 people a month is too high.
“I think you could actually have 200 people nationwide in a paid environment. All you need is half a dozen attached to each constabulary and pay them and that would be as effective.
“It doesn’t take a big team to work like this. It just takes somebody dedicated to doing it.
“Jo and I work at least 20 hours a week on top of our family and professional lives. I just think you could make it into a full-time job and cut the numbers down.
“Any way of it being regulated and any way of working with the police has got to be a good thing.”
*Names have been changed.