Posted by 13 February 2018 UP DATED BY WATCHERS SEPTEMBER 2025.
Kevin MageeBBC News NI investigations correspondent
A BBC News NI investigation reveals the self-styled ‘paedophile hunters’
Some of the leaders of self-styled paedophile-hunting groups operating in Northern Ireland have been identified for the first time.
There are increasing concerns about the methods many of the groups use, and their lack of accountability.
The so-called paedophile-hunting groups target people online who they believe are sexual predators.
They confront them and broadcast the encounter live on the internet, then call the police.
There have been more than 100 incidents of that nature reported to police in Northern Ireland, but no-one has been charged as a result and there have been no convictions.
BBC News NI’s Kevin Magee tries to speak to Sharon Shanks
Former senior police officer and child protection expert Jim Gamble warned that some of the tactics used by the groups are criminal.
“Anyone live streaming these incidents is not about the justice of catching someone who represents a threat to children,” he said.
“They are about the self-publicity and the self-centred approach about themselves, much more than about making children safer.”
All of the groups keep their identities hidden.
‘On whose authority?’
BBC News NI approached two of the people involved in setting up the “hunting groups” in Northern Ireland to ask them for an interview.
BBC News NI’s Kevin Magee tries to speak to self-styled paedophile hunter George Keenan
Sharon Shanks, from south Belfast, is behind the group called Justice Reborn Northern Ireland and she uses the alias Chelsea Lewis.
Ms Shanks declined to do an interview, saying in an online message that she was unhappy that “journalists and news stations have so far called the hunting groups vigilantes”.
“Our identity we keep to ourselves so meeting isn’t an option,” she said.
During one confrontation that she posted live online, Ms Shanks is overheard using explicit offensive language and threats of violence against a man who came across the scene.
When approached by the BBC just after she had broadcast other live footage on Facebook of herself interrogating a man she had alleged was a paedophile, Ms Shanks refused to answer our questions.
We wanted to ask about the methods her secret group used, and on whose authority she had been detaining people who she believed to be paedophiles.
Contains some strong language.BBC News NI Investigations Reporter Kevin Magee is confronted by self-styled paedophile hunters
She declined to answer any questions.
Instead, Ms Shanks pulled on a scarf and was driven way at speed.
There are up to 10 different, self-appointed paedophile hunting groups operating in Northern Ireland.
Often they are in competition with one another, but sometimes they join forces.
‘Won’t answer questions’
One of those who introduced the concept of “paedophile hunting” to Northern Ireland is 34-year-old Belfast man George Keenan.
He uses the alias James SJ O’Neill and was linked to a group calling itself Silent Justice.
Who Watches the Watchers? 