The timing of her messages was crucial.
After 4pm, when schools had finished and teenagers were logging online to ‘chat’ about the usual inanities of the day, was perfect.
Taking a 30-minute break for ‘tea’ between 6pm and 7pm was a good ploy too — especially if you said you were being called to the table by your ‘Mum’.
Gemma Cowell knew exactly what she was doing. And why. She’d never felt more clear about anything.
Amy Kidley, a 28-year-old single mother who co-founded Huntz 2 Exposure a year ago
Taking a deep breath, she logged onto the ‘friendship’ chat room, and started typing. ‘Hiya, WUU2?’ and sat back.
She’d done her research: that was the accepted ‘teenspeak’ acronym for ‘what are you up to?’ a plausible greeting for any under-16.
The responses that came back were fairly typical: the usual runs of NM (not much) and HBY (how about you?), before launching into the usual prattle about homework, pets, clothes and nosy parents.
Gemma, a 27-year-old mother of three and a trained child counsellor, was posing as Molly, a ‘bored 13-year-old from Wales’ with one express purpose: to lure paedophiles and would-be grooming predators into a ‘sting’.
All she had to do was sift out the perverts stalking the site, engage them in conversation, agree to ‘meet for sex’ and arrange for them to be ambushed by vigilantes who’d film the encounter and hand him over to police.
‘It felt like a public service,’ says Gemma. ‘I’d be doing my bit to protect children and make the world a better, cleaner place.
‘I had a personal reason for wanting to bring paedophiles to justice too: I was seriously sexually assaulted when I was 16 by a 22-year-old man who was never charged.’
When she signed up with the group Huntz 2 Exposure this year, after seeing footage of a ‘sting’ on Facebook, Gemma joined a growing army of amateur paedophile hunters whose operations stretch across the UK.
The nation is in the grip of an extraordinary phenomenon involving possibly thousands of have-a-go investigators.
With names like Dark Justice, Guardians Of The North and Catching Online Predators, the groups command massive support.
Michael Terry, who infiltrated a paedophile vigilante group. He was described as a ‘dangerous sexual predator’ by a judge
They have formed a volunteer online taskforce, linked by Facebook groups and private mobile phone chat groups.
Videos of stings — some broadcast live — are viewed by thousands, with ringleaders treated like minor celebs.
Last year their evidence was used to charge more than 150 suspects, a seven-fold increase in two years.
So, an honourable and altruistic role…yet after a month, Gemma was still waiting for a single approach from someone displaying an interest in sex with children.
Instead, she was becoming concerned about the behaviour of her fellow hunters.
Admitted to their private message groups, where around 20 of them ‘chatted’ using online aliases, she looked on in horror as they appeared to treat their activities as a sick game.
They mocked innocent people, sometimes obviously mentally ill, egged each other on and openly admitted they were desperate for a ‘result’.
Some fantasised about ‘slicing and dicing’ offenders, while another bragged she ‘wouldn’t stop until she saw blood’.
And instead of intercepting organised grooming gangs in the act, they seemed to be entrapping vulnerable men with premeditated, sexually-loaded questions Gemma wasn’t comfortable with.
The stings themselves seemed to do more harm than good.
‘Families are often attacked, children are bullied or their houses smashed up. They seemed to be putting children and families at risk rather than protecting them,’ she said.
The final straw came when a leading member was exposed by a rival group as a predatory paedophile himself, throwing the group into chaos.
That’s when Gemma decided she’d had enough and announced she was leaving.
Retribution was brutal and swift.
‘They turned on me. They said I couldn’t be trusted and called me a “nonce sympathiser”.
‘They took photos of my children from Facebook, posted them on the group chat and mocked them. They threatened to come to my home.
‘Yet they say they want to protect children? You have a group here who try to play God. They are taking the law into their own hands.
‘They even welcomed a convicted paedophile into their ranks without checking his credentials. It made me wonder who else is working for them, and why.’
David Baker, 43, who killed himself after a video of him being lured to an underground car park in Hampshire, supposedly to meet a 14-year-old boy, was posted online by hunters
While it’s natural to applaud the actions of individuals who bring perverts to justice, many police officers working in child protection agree with Gemma that vigilante activity puts both hunters and targets at risk, while jeopardising police operations.
One retired child protection expert went so far as to call for masquerading as a child online to become a criminal offence.
Last year David Baker, 43, killed himself after a video of him being lured to an underground car park in Hampshire, supposedly to meet a 14-year-old boy, was posted online by hunters.
And in April, one volunteer lost a finger after it was bitten in a confrontation at Stevenage railway station.
Senior police officer Simon Bailey, who oversees all child sex abuse inquiries nationally, has repeatedly warned against vigilante justice.
The Norfolk Chief Constable said: ‘They are putting children’s lives and the lives of innocent people at risk. This is not something that should be tackled by people without professional training.
‘It should be left to the police. If a member of the public has concerns an individual might be seeking to groom children for sexual abuse they should report it to us.’
Senior police officer Simon Bailey, who oversees all child sex abuse inquiries nationally, has repeatedly warned against vigilante justice
For Gemma, who lives on the outskirts of Cardiff, getting involved in paedophile hunting took a matter of hours and a few photos from her childhood.
Explaining her motivation, she said: ‘I used to do child counselling for a London-based charity which helps children with mental health issues as well as bullying, abuse and violence.
‘With three young children I can’t do that at the moment. I have my counselling qualifications but they are not being used.’
She chose the group Huntz 2 Exposure after spotting Facebook appeals for women to act as ‘decoys’ online to snare fresh targets.
She dug out a few snaps of herself aged 11 to 15 to create fake profiles on popular adult ‘friendship’ sites, Waplog and Meet4U.
‘I then got an email list of ‘dos and don’ts’ (obtain as much information as possible while remaining child-like and innocent. ALWAYS state your fake age within the first three messages).
Judging from what she’d read from fellow hunters, she thought she’d be pounced on like fresh bait.
But she waited . . .and waited . . . as the inane, innocent prattle carried on.
‘I started to wonder how the others were picking up these supposed perverts,’ says Gemma.
She soon got her answer.
When she talked about her lack of inappropriate advances in the private group chat, the other hunters — all using aliases — started offering tips on the type of leading questions that could get her a ‘result.’
‘It felt as if it was trapping the person,’ says Gemma. ‘It was all in the questions. If you did not ask these questions they probably would not have said these things.
‘It also seemed inappropriate — we were told to be naive. But what 13-year-old would ask “what does sex mean” or “what is a b*** j**?”
‘The questions were very specific and designed to get incriminating answers. The decoys worked in such a way as to trap the person into giving an answer.’
Gemma also noticed a pattern in the type of men who caught the attention of the hunters: fat, old, hairy ‘dodgy-looking’ men, non-native English speakers and those from overseas who wouldn’t be familiar with our culture.
‘To me they seemed to target those you might think “look” like a paedophile.
‘Younger-looking men were instantly dismissed. In some conversations, it wasn’t clear if there was a language barrier or the target had learning disabilities.
‘One guy I spoke to was clearly autistic. Some were not even capable of looking after themselves, let alone arranging to travel somewhere for sex with a child.’
As one ‘hunter’ complained: ‘I’ve got one who’s obsessed with tickling . . . another who’s been speaking to me for ages, but not in a sexual way. I think one of them is one sandwich short of a picnic — he keeps telling me he’s my best friend.’
Another griped she was talking to one ‘who just wants to be my big brother and take care of me. Doesn’t want to f*** me and it’s getting very frustrating.’
A month after she joined, the group was thrown into chaos when a leading member of the hunting ‘community’ was exposed as a paedophile.
Incredibly, Michael Terry had infiltrated a linked group, The Guardian Angels, and had won the trust of Huntz 2 Exposure, setting himself up as the group’s ‘head of security’.
This was despite the fact he’d been described as a ‘dangerous sexual predator’ by a judge.
He had been convicted at Liverpool Crown Court in 2014 of indecent exposure and inciting a girl under 16 to engage in a sexual act, and given a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order.
It prevented him from having any contact with children under 16.
Then, in February 2016, he was jailed for 12 months at Preston Crown Court when he breached the order by befriending a vulnerable woman who had a six-year-old son and staying overnight with them in Blackpool.
Terry, 43, breached the order again after he joined the Lincolnshire-based Guardian Angels, and became close to its director Mandy Bradley — staying over at her house on several occasions, despite her having three children under 13.
He was eventually caught after a police request to Mrs Bradley to check his background.
After she uncovered his paedophile past he was arrested and finally jailed for 20 months at Lincoln Crown Court in March this year.
It was quite an own goal, and in the aftermath a deeply embarrassed Huntz 2 Exposure privately called on everyone to demonstrate they did not have a similar criminal record.
Gemma watched in horror as the confessions started pouring in.
One of the founders, going by the alias of Matt Huntz, didn’t even seem remotely ashamed, admitting: ‘I’ve got a criminal record as long as my f***ing street. I’ve been arrested more times than I’ve eaten hot meals.’
He went on to say he had convictions for intent to supply and wounding with intent.
One woman said: ‘I’ve only been detained twice under the Mental Health Act. Both times was not my fault, down to ex partners.’
Gemma began to doubt whether these people were best qualified to be safeguarding children.
Professor Liz Yardley, a criminologist at Birmingham City University agrees.
She said she suspects that, far from being motivated by a need to help children, the hunters are really ‘doing it for themselves’.
She said: ‘It is incredible how some online groups are able to justify some of the most horrendous behaviour.
‘Child sexual exploitation is obviously a very serious crime but they would be better getting behind the legitimate campaigns of the NSPCC and others.
‘It is interesting to look at the kind of people involved in this. They are not high-achieving professionals with fulfilling family lives and careers.
‘They are people looking for opportunities to be “somebody” and become “something” and this defines them.’
Last night Amy Kidley, a 28-year-old single mother who co-founded Huntz 2 Exposure a year ago, defended the group’s actions.
Amy, now based in West Yorkshire, dismissed Gemma’s allegations that she had been threatened as ‘a load of c***’, before adding: ‘We are here to do this for the kids, that is our priority.
‘We have decoys working tirelessly outside of school hours and waiting for these predators to approach them.
‘We try to work with police and we have a relationship with some. We are doing all the legwork for them.
‘Not all police forces do the same thing. I can see both sides of it. But the way I see it, I am out to protect children.
‘We make it very clear that before we turn up at a predator’s house, we have to call the police.
‘What we do is just for exposure. How many people know their next-door neighbour is a predator?’
Whatever the concerns, there is no sign of any official move to clamp down on paedophile hunters or bring their work into the mainstream.
As with scores like it, the Huntz 2 Exposure Facebook page is still attracting thousands of supporters with the dark warning to targets: ‘Tick Tock your time is up…’