'Public Should Be Able To Help Catch Paedophiles'

Volunteers should be trained by police as digital detectives to help catch suspected paedophiles in the North East.

That's according to the former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, Jim Gamble.

He thinks our police force should recruit around 20 volunteers who will be vetted and trained to become online digital detectives with access to police facilities to help catch suspected online paedophiles.

Jim has calculated that, if 40 forces across the UK recruited 20 special constable volunteers, it would cost around £1.6million to fund.

It’s claimed this could prevent vigilantism and the need some people have to hunt paedophiles, without jeopardising ongoing investigations or putting their own safety at risk.

Jim said: "We should capture that frustration that people have and channel it more positively.

"But that comes down to police recruiting volunteers, vetting them and training them. And then let them come in to police stations at night, let them access the hardware so that they can go online, working hand in glove with full time police officers."

Just last week one North East group who call themselves Dark Justice exclusively told us that they want to work with the police.

It’s after they released a video catch a now convicted paedophile in Newcastle.

Speaking anonymously to us to protect their identity – the people behind it said: "If we do nothing, it's just going to get worse and worse. When you've got these people targetting children, you've got to do something.* *

"We basically make up an evidence file like police do, we go with a video camera and video them. We have an evidence disk on us that we can hand over to police so they can make an arrest."

The National Crime Agency told us these kind of actions are something their very wary of, saying:

"While we understand public desire to protect children from online abuse, we do not encourage vigilante action, which can compromise ongoing investigations into paedophile networks and could cause abusers to harm a child if they feel threatened.

"Investigating alleged paedophiles is best left to law enforcement agencies, and incidents of online grooming can be reported to CEOP or the local police . The NCA's CEOP Command, and UK police forces, work with child protection agencies to ensure the appropriate care for vulnerable and exploited children."

You can find out more about the work of CEOP here.

• Children