Paedophile web vigilantes blasted

VIGILANTE paedophile hunters are ruining innocent people’s lives to win approval on social media, a senior police officer has claimed.

Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk Police, launched a blistering attack on the groups, saying they slow down official investigations and can lead to suicides.

Evidence from paedophile hunters was used to charge suspects on at least 150 occasions in 2017 but Mr Bailey emphatically ruled out working with such groups, accusing them of taking ‘completely unnecessary risks’.

Vigilantes pose as children online and lure suspected paedophiles into meeting them. The resulting confrontations are filmed and often posted on social media.

Mr Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on child protection, said: ‘I can’t deny they’ve led to convictions. But they’ve also led to people being blackmailed, people being subject of GBH, the wrong people being accused, people committing suicide, family lives being completely destroyed, in the name of what? Facebook likes. My mission is to safeguard children. There’s a world of difference.’

In one case David Baker, who was confronted by a group known as ‘Southampton Trap’ after allegedly arranging to meet a 14-yearold, took his own life in October 2017. The coroner at his inquest ruled that social media posts by the vigilante group were a ‘causative factor’ in his suicide.

Former police chief Jim Gamble told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in early 2018 that masquerading as a child online should become a criminal offence to deter vigilante stings.