How paedophile hunters make things worse for the children they want to protect

The evidence these amateur groups gather generally falls far below law enforcement agencies’ standards

They present themselves as the X-Men of child exploitation: anonymous, civic-minded vigilantes prepared to go the extra mile to help bring paedophiles to justice.

But while paedophile hunters may have some public benefit, this is more than outweighed by the serious legal and moral problems their actions too often pose.

The latest injustice has been exposed on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme which this week revealed that eight men have committed suicide after being labelled child abusers on social media.

Some of these men killed themselves after conviction in court, the programme reported, in which case one could argue that they at least received due legal process.

But others did so long before trial.

Michael Duff, whose case the BBC focused on, reportedly took his own life just two days after a video of him being confronted by a self-styled paedophile hunter was uploaded to Facebook.

The video apparently showed Duff waiting in park to meet a 15-year-old girl he allegedly contacted online.

Duff was subsequently interviewed then released by police, the programme reported. As such any criminal prosecution against him was likely to be in its infancy. His daughter Lesley quite rightly said: “The reality is that he may not have committed any crime at all.”

As a solicitor who has represented many people accused of serious sexual offences, I know from experience that these matters are rarely cut and dried. Prosecution cases which appear on first glance to be watertight are revealed on proper examination to be so full of holes as to be worthless.

This is generally never more so than when prosecution evidence is gathered by paedophile hunters.

The reality is that the evidence these un-vetted and amateur groups gather generally falls far below professional law enforcement agencies’ standards. Often it is obtained via entrapment – a deeply problematic tactic which police officers are correctly barred from using.

The overall result is that paedophile hunters can actually damage the cause of child safety they claim to champion.

More than one paedophile hunter has been arrested for blackmail. One was accused of giving inaccurate and misleading evidence in court.

There is also a fear, as voiced by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), that these groups may actually put children at risk. This can happen if a suspect, having been confronted by vigilantes, acts to ensure further evidence of his offending remains hidden.

Paedophile hunters “have no way of safeguarding child victims”, the NPCC rightly points out.

The potential problems run even deeper. In 2013 the Association of Chief Police Officers said “one of our worst fears is that groups such as these are infiltrated by the very people they are trying to identify”.

Despite all this, the official attitude towards paedophile hunter groups remains, to my mind, worryingly ambiguous.

NPCC internal guidance tells officers that “it is not recommended… in any way” to endorse the activities of vigilante groups. However, Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the organisation’s lead for child protection, has indicated that he is open to working with them.

I believe it is time for ministers to decide whether it’s safer to create a framework for regulating vigilantes or to adequately resource the police.

On top of this we should not overlook the role of social media in cases such as Duff’s.

According to the BBC account of his case, highly damaging, prima facie evidence of a crime was uploaded to Facebook where it was viewed not only by his friends and family, but also, potentially, by billions of people worldwide.

The social media giants claim that they differ from broadcasters and publishers in that they bear little legal responsibility for material uploaded onto their platforms.

To my mind this seems hard to justify.

It is time to ask not only whether paedophile hunters are the right people to investigate serious crime; but whether we want them to be able to publicise their allegations worldwide at the click of a button.

The rule of law depends on punishing the guilty according to the law. We should stand up for the principle that everyone is entitled to due process no matter how abhorrent the allegation.

Jenny Wiltshire is Head of General Crime at Hickman & Rose solicitors.