Parents May Face Charges After Livestreaming Attack on Alleged Pedophile

The parents of a young girl who was receiving messages from an older man may be facing assault charges after luring the man contacting their daughter to their home under the guise of sex.

The man was punched, tackled and hogtied on the ground. Afterwards the BC couple took to Facebook Live to explain their actions as they waited for police to arrive.

According to CTV News, who first broke the story, the couple first noticed the man was messaging their daughter on Instagram about six weeks before the incident happened. Speaking to the news outlet, the Port Alberni mother told CTV that they attempted to get to the police on the case but, as she tells it, “they wouldn't even look at my phone. They just said to block him and forget it."

The man allegedly sent their daughter sexual messages and nude photos, reports Global News, and this pushed the couple to take the situation into their own hands. The mother posed as her daughter and invited him over—she alleges that she invited the police to come to their home before the man showed up but they refused.

When the man showed up the mother said that she confronted him, punched him in the face and had two men that were laying in wait tackle him and restrain him with the aforementioned hogtying technique. The three then began to livestream the situation (a copy of the video has been viewed by VICE) on Facebook and called the authorities.

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In the video you see the man lying on his stomach with his legs and arms tied behind his back.

“He comes to my house to meet my 13-year-old fucking daughter to fuck her. He wanted to be her first,” the mother says in the video. “We fucking tackled him and zap strapped him and called the police.”

When police arrived they released the man and sent him to the hospital. They then informed the couple that they may be facing charges for their actions. CTV reports that the couple are being investigated for criminal charges including assault causing bodily harm and forcible confinement. Furthermore, police issued a statement after the attack saying that the man was being investigated for the last five weeks for child luring (an investigation which will continue) and they don’t exactly endorse the actions the parents took.

"Vigilante actions like these are not only illegal and put people in danger, but they also have the potential to compromise the original investigation," Cpl. Amelia Hayden told CTV. "It hasn't resolved one issue—it's caused another and put people in danger, everybody."

The parents aren’t the only people to take vigilante action in regards to luring children online, over the past few years there has been a steady rise of people calling themselves Creep Catchers or something along those lines who use similar tactics as these parents. Their goal is similar—spread the image of the alleged paedophile wide online in order to shame them.

“At least now, everybody that knows him … they can protect their own kids because they know what’s going on,” the stepfather told CTV. “That’s all that we wanted — was just to be able to protect the kids.”

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