Who are Guardians of the North and how many paedophiles has the group caught?

PAEDOPHILE hunters Guardians of the North have become notorious for catching and exposing perverts who try to meet young girls for sex.

Cops admit they may have to work with such groups to catch more online pervs. Here's everything we know about the Guardians of the North.

Who are the Guardians of the North?

The Guardians of the North is a paedophile vigilante group that snares would-be sex offenders.

They are based in the north-east of England and claim to be "dedicated to keeping our children safe from online grooming and paedophiles".

They create fake profiles of underage girls in a bid to snare paedophiles.

If perverts try to get in contact with the girls, the group then leads the men to believe they can meet for sex.

They encourage the would-be sex offenders to incriminate themselves on messages, before filming the encounter when they meet.

Posts on the group's Facebook page, which has more than 22,000 followers, also warn of sex offenders who are being released and updates on any being jailed.

How many paedophiles has the vigilante group caught?

Guardians of the North claim to have caught 68 paedophiles in 10 months.

Seven of the group's snare videos have been uploaded to their Facebook page.

These include Graham Ollis, a 47-year-old who was caught out after trying to groom the group's four teenage "decoy" profiles.

The group also snared Alex Robertson, a 58-year-old who travelled from Leeds to a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunderland after chatting to what he believed were two teenage girls online.

But the profiles on Facebook were also fake accounts set up by Guardians of the North.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how Robertson contacted "Chelsea Green" a 15-year-old girl from Sunderland, and asked her if she would go out with an older man and if she would meet him.

Michael Bunch, prosecuting, said: "When she asked what they would do, he said 'I'd love sex, have you had a bf?'"

Robertson, of Wytherpark Crescent, Leeds, admitted two counts of attempted grooming on the day of his trial.

An asylum seeker Bahram Hosseini hoping to have sex with a child was snared by the paedophile hunters.

What have police said about the vigilante groups?

Figures obtained by the BBC show that last year more than 44 per cent of child sex grooming meetings used evidence from paedophile hunters.

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the national lead for child protection at the National Police Chiefs' Council, said: "These vigilante groups are putting the lives of children at risk.

"I'm not going to condone these groups and I would encourage them all to stop, but I recognise that I am not winning that conversation.

"I think (working with vigilantes) is something we're going to have to potentially have to look at, yes, but it comes with some real complexity."

Tyneside-based duo Dark Justice claim on their website to have helped apprehend 104 sex crime suspects, leading to 50 convictions.