“WE ARE putting ourselves on the frontline to protect children.”

Those are the words of paedophile hunters that took down a Basingstoke child sex offender.

Tony Morriss, also known as Tony Lamport, was sentenced to eight months in prison in November after being caught by a group of paedophile hunters known as Safeguarding Kids Online.

The 21-year-old was confronted by the team outside Basingstoke hospital, where he thought he was meeting a 14-year-old girl.

However, he had in actual fact been messaging a decoy account set up by the group, who live-streamed the confrontation on Facebook. It has since had 82,000 views.

In an exclusive interview with the Gazette, the first that the group have ever done, their founder, Jon, and the person who runs the decoy that snared Morriss, Vick, said that their only goal was to see people like him taken off the street.

“I started the page in June,” Jon said. “We do this to expose them and children’s safeguarding. We’re making the police act on this evidence.”

“We are a voluntary online organisation that proactively works to that,” Vick added.

She says that the group have a number of decoy accounts, that use childhood photos of people who have since turned 18 and consented.

“We have five decoys, and what they will do is create an account which is similar to a child’s account and lay dormant. They won’t contact anybody, and when they are contacted by an adult, if they state that they’re underage and that chat becomes sexual or indecent images are sent, we will work to conduct a sting,” she continued.

Since they started, Jon has done 140 ‘stings’ – where they confront the person that has contacted their decoy and ask them questions – whilst Vick has done 70.

“We factually 100 per cent know that these guys are talking to the decoys, and 99 per cent of the time they admit to it,” Jon said.

“We try and keep it as calm as possible. We’re not the police and we’re not professionals, we do everything by the book. We have to stick to the law to get the conviction we want,” he added, talking about how the group conduct their takedowns.

After filming the suspect’s responses to their questions, they will let them get on their way before handing their evidence to the police.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always end up that cordial.

“We’ve had an individual that brought a knife to us, that sad reality is that he’d probably get longer for bringing the knife,” Vick says, whilst Jon says he’s been bitten before.

Not only can it be dangerous for these volunteers, but it can also be upsetting.

“You’re emotionless when you’re in front of them,” Vick continues. “You go somewhere different, you’re a completely different person.

“You were angry but you’re there and you’re going for the conviction.”

However, it’s after the cameras have been shut off and they move on that the reality of the situation hits, according to Jon.

“When the case has moved on, you often hear that real children have come forward. There’s times when you walk away heartbroken and in tears.”

Vick added: “To know that you were stood in front of someone so horrible that they wanted to do something that bad to a child, you can’t put it into words.”

If it emotionally effects these people so badly, and they have the risk of physical injury, why do they continue doing it? They both say it’s because they are parents.

Jon said: “It’s really gut-wrenching when you go through their (his child’s) phone, you’re scared because of what you might see. My heart drops when I’m looking through it, I’m scared she’s seeing something that she shouldn’t be.”

Vick adds: “We never give out an address, we’ll give out what area they’re in. For parents and guardians they want to know. I’d want to know if the lovely man next door was a convicted paedophile. Everyone has a right to know who they are and where they are.”

She continues to say that with many children waking up on Christmas morning to new devices, parents should be careful. She says they need to check and monitor devices constantly, whilst children who have had strangers contact them should tell their parents.

Jon agrees, and says that he supports all of the many other teams across the country.

He added: “A big thank you to all of our team from admin and security to decoys and hunters.”

Morriss was sentenced to eight months in prison in November after the SKO team confronted him.

They asked him about the messages he sent to their decoy, saying that he had said he wanted to rape and sexually assault the 14-year-old girl that they had posed as in the woods.

The team also said that he was going to take her birthday money.

He was arrested soon after by Hampshire Constabulary, before soon appearing at Magistrates’ Court, where it was quickly sent to Winchester Crown Court.

Morriss had been confronted, arrested, charged and sentenced in not much more than a month, something that SKO praised Hampshire Police for.

“Some of them take 18 months, but Basingstoke have acted really quickly,” Jon said.

“We were really impressed with how quick it was. We’d like to congratulate the police, courts and CPS for acting so quickly.”

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