My night with the paedo hunters

It’s a Wednesday evening, and I’m getting psyched up to go catch a paedophile with the boys. Playlist on, rocking down the A12 and chatting to my new mate, Nick, in his van. There’s a man not far from here who thinks he’s going to meet an underage girl tonight. He doesn’t know that we’ll be pulling up instead and that his sick fantasy – and his life as he knows it – will be over.

Nick is a guy I met on Facebook who runs a team of paedophile hunters called London Overwatch. He says that he’s caught 300 paedophiles, and that tonight’s is one of the worst. This man believes he has been talking to a 14-year-old girl and has apparently been sending her obscene videos while he’s on holiday with his family. The ‘girl’ is really a woman on Nick’s team.

T-minus one hour before the meeting, and we park at a local health club just around the corner. The team assembles: Ben, George, Tony, Michael and Abdul. All friendly Essex boys. We discuss whether you can spot a paedophile in the street judging only by the clothes somebody wears. Yes, it’s agreed, they wear Slazenger or Lonsdale. We talk about fishing and about how Ben recently visited the no. 2 ranked sushi restaurant in the world.

Time to roll out. We move in convoy, charging down a country lane to the location. Tony and Michael are at the front, connected to us through the hands-free, and they arrive first. ‘He’s here, he’s here, he’s here,’ Tony says. Nick chuckles and grabs my leg, shaking it wildly. We swing in second and there’s the paedophile’s car, with the man sitting behind the wheel. He doesn’t know what’s happening.