AN online paedophile hunting group has issued a warning to perverts in Lancashire.

The leader of Dark Light, who is known only as ‘Mike’, said the group were coming for so-called ‘virtual paedophiles’ and wanted to work with the police to get sexual predators off the streets.

The warning comes after police arrested a 41-year-old man in Haslingden on Sunday, September 23, on suspicion of child grooming following a ‘sting operation’ carried out by the group.

Mike says that since the group’s inception just over a year ago, they have managed to snare at least five child groomers in the North West.

He said: “Since last year we’ve caught over 70 online paedophiles across the country and around five from the Lancashire area, all of which have resulted in convictions.”

Police forces advise groups such as Dark Light to avoid taking the law into their own hands due to safeguarding reasons.

However, Mike believes that by forging close working relationships with the police, they and other similar groups can help catch more perverts before they harm innocent children.

Mike said: “We have quite a transparent relationship with the police, which is necessary if we’re to carry on doing what we’re doing.

“While they don’t ‘officially’ support what we do, they know we are providing them with the help they need as they don’t always have the resources to do things like this and come up against a lot of red tape.”

Dark Light works by using adult decoys who set up social media profiles posing as children.

The decoys wait for paedophiles to get in touch and then converse with them, explicitly telling the online groomers they are underage.

If conversation continues and turns sexual, meetings are set up in order to confront and catch the predators, then the police are called, who attend the scene and make an arrest.

A statement from the police said: “We understand the desire to protect children but any member of the public who has information about child sexual abuse, online or otherwise, should get in contact with the police so we can investigate and bring people to justice.

“So-called paedophile hunters are taking risks they don’t understand and can undermine police investigations.

"Most importantly, unlike our officers, they have no way of safeguarding child victims.”