British police warn parents against anti-paedophile vigilantism

Police in England have warned against parents acting as vigilante groups following a covert operation by mothers and fathers that led to the arrests of seven suspected paedophiles.

Six parents, working under the moniker “Letzgo Hunting” recorded the suspected paedophiles after pretending to be children on the internet.

They posed online as underage girls in order to lure the men to parks, where they then confronted them and recorded them on camera.

One video of a man being confronted has been posted on the group’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The mothers disguised themselves as teenagers to lure the men into the meetings.

After exchanging pictures dressed as young girls, arrangements were made to meet with the men for sex.

“It’s amazing to watch their faces drop as they realise they are not meeting who they thought they were,” said the vigilantes’ leader, who goes by the name Scumm Buster.

“This guy from Birmingham was the biggest scumbag ever. The stuff he was saying was just vile.

“He took a lot of steps to make sure we were real. He said he’d been duped before. He asked us for pictures, phone calls. He asked us for sexual photographs as well, but anything explicit we declined.

“He reiterated quite a lot of times that he couldn’t believe a girl that age was interested in him.”

A police spokesman said of the latest arrest, of a 45-year-old man from the West Midlands: “A man was arrested on suspicion of online grooming after a video of a confrontation was posted online.”

Leicester Police last month arrested three men, aged 54, 24, and 33, as a result of Letzgo Hunting’s stings.

In addition, Warwickshire Police has arrested three men, aged 26, 54, and 51, over the past five weeks — all seven suspects are currently on police bail.

Police warned that vigilante efforts can go wrong, but Scumm Buster says the group is simply keeping vulnerable children safe and that they are currently monitoring another 35 men potentially engaged in grooming offences.