The Paedophile Hunter.

[tikay]

This airs tomorrow (Wednesday) on Ch 4.

It tells the tale of a chap who poses as a young girl on the internet, who lures ill-intended men to his house, & then films them & posts the stuff on Facebook, where he has 100,000 followers.

Allegedly, at least 10 convictions have resulted from his "sting".

One man, who got "caught", committed suicide.

Previews from The Independent & Mail are below, but every newspaper has run the story.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/the-paedophile-hunter-vigilantes-success-adds-to-pressure-for-greater-police-resources-in-child-sex-crackdown-9763501.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774429/Documentary-paedophile-hunter-vigilante-force-police-devote-time-covert-operations-catch-offenders.html


Are such vigilantes, generrally, a good thing, or a bad thing?


This is the vigilante, Hunter Stinson.

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

You can also go to You Tube & search for "Hunter Stinson" to see how he operates, there are numerous vidous by him, in fact he has his own You Tube Channel, with scores of "expose's".

[TightEnd]

quiet day in front of you tikay? not a lot to do?

jeez....

lol

[tikay]

Well hopefully we have enough intelligent & reasoned members here able to debate this in an adult manner. It's not politics or religion.

I hope it does not cause a ruck, & I'm sorry if it does, but I think it is a really interesting matter as to whether vigilantes are a good thing.

Parents, of course, may see it differently to non-parents. 

 

[TightEnd]

ok i'll start

I come from a more libertarian viewpoint that such vigilantes should not be encouraged, and in this instance i speak as the father of a teenage girl

Vigilantes in essence make their own laws and act upon them, despite that Vigilante action can be prosecuted both under laws relating to incitement and also public order legislation

Not onl might a vigilante group be utterly useless in terms of law enforcement but it is also highly likely that they are actually harming children rather than protecting them.

By getting in the way of legitimate police action against suspected offenders, they can run the risk of undermining any legitimate police investigation or subsequent court action and thus of allowing suspected paedophiles to go free and possibly to abuse children.

Of course the other viewpoint is one that will be popular, especially with suspected paedophiles, that the police don't do enough, that the offense is reprehensible and that this helps protect the innocent etc


--

on a different issue, the MP caught sending pictures to the "girl" in the newspaper sting, I come out pretty firmly against the newspaper

of course the MP was stupid, but the entrapment was the worse "offence" to my mind particularly using photos of real people only posted on social media that day to do their business for them

[RED-DOG]

Vigilantes are a liability. String em up I say.

[Woodsey]

ok i'll start

I come from a more libertarian viewpoint that such vigilantes should not be encouraged, and in this instance i speak as the father of a teenage girl

Vigilantes in essence make their own laws and act upon them, despite that Vigilante action can be prosecuted both under laws relating to incitement and also public order legislation

Not onl might a vigilante group be utterly useless in terms of law enforcement but it is also highly likely that they are actually harming children rather than protecting them.

By getting in the way of legitimate police action against suspected offenders, they can run the risk of undermining any legitimate police investigation or subsequent court action and thus of allowing suspected paedophiles to go free and possibly to abuse children.

Of course the other viewpoint is one that will be popular, especially with suspected paedophiles, that the police don't do enough, that the offense is reprehensible and that this helps protect the innocent etc


--

on a different issue, the MP caught sending pictures to the "girl" in the newspaper sting, I come out pretty firmly against the newspaper

of course the MP was stupid, but the entrapment was the worse "offence" to my mind particularly using photos of real people only posted on social media that day to do their business for them

Regarding your second point I'm pretty amazed at the willingness of people to send naked/semi naked pics to people they hardly know.

One of my work colleagues is hitting the dating sites pretty hard at the moment as he is single, every time I meet up with him he has new pics of several birds that have sent him pics and they barely know him!

[AndrewT]

Thanks for the heads-up Tikay - when I'm noncing on the internet now I'll remember to ask for a live webchat with the girl so I know it's not just this guy.

[horseplayer]

Have watched some of his Youtube stuff before

So far his evidence alone has ended up with 10 convictions (believe there have been many more for "people" who the police were already onto)

Cant see how that can ever be a bad thing personally

[pleno1]

Love this stuff.

To catch a predator is in it's 11th season right now and whilst repetitive is interesting to watch.

So many teachers or more weirdly guys who have just become fathers.

[baldock92]

Sounds like an interesting watch. Like pleno said there's a lot of guys who you wouldn't expect to be involved in this sort of stuff who are. I worked on a summer camp with a guy who is now banged up for this sort of thing.

[GreekStein]

On the one hand I think vigilante-ism is wrong, on the other hand I kind of admire this guy and other vigilantes. He is only trying to save kids.

Essentially though it just shows that the police/government aren't good enough at both finding and punishing these sick people.

[Omm]

Watched some of the clips on YouTube, got to give the guy and his team credit for having the balls to challenge the guys in this way. Hopefully the documentary will explain why he decided to start this "campaign".

On a similar point I thought about this subject a lot recently after a conversation a had at Luton. Some guys were talking about a vicar that played at the casino regularly, who had been named in the local paper as being found guilty of "obscene conversations with Children", on enquiring who it was I googled him to see if I knew him, the picture that came up confirmed I (and many others as he was a regular) had played with this guy quite a lot ( even after he had been charged and suspended from work, which of course nobody knew at the time). One of the guys at the table was very irate about the whole thing, particularly as he had tried to get back into the casino after he had been banned (I'm presuming for his own safety as well as for the benefit of the rest of the customers). I actually felt quite numb about the whole situation, he was a normal guy, no reason to think any different, I distinctly remember him talking to a very attractive masseuse a lot, I remember thinking he must have no chance with her. All the while portraying a life similar to most of us, yet lurking in this underworld of vile intentions. Since been wondering what he would have said had he been challenge about this at the table.

[WotRTheChances]

Love this stuff.

To catch a predator is in it's 11th season right now and whilst repetitive is interesting to watch.

So many teachers or more weirdly guys who have just become fathers.

Yeah i've watched quite a few of these. Kinda rubbish TV, but keeps my simple mind entertained on occasions.

[redarmi]

On the one hand I think vigilante-ism is wrong, on the other hand I kind of admire this guy and other vigilantes. He is only trying to save kids.

Essentially though it just shows that the police/government aren't good enough at both finding and punishing these sick people.

Think this is the key point.  The vigilantes would be out of a job if the state did their job well enough and devoted enough resources to it.