Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

At least eight men have killed themselves in the UK after being 'caught' by so-called "paedophile hunters", new research shows.

There has been a stark rise in the amount of vigilante groups operating in the UK in recent years. They usually pose as children on chat websites to catch and confront alleged paedophiles.

But there have been concerns these vigilante groups are hindering the law.

Here a paedophile hunter explains why she does it:

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Researchers for the Victoria Derbyshire programme on the BBC found that at least eight men have killed themselves after being confronted in the last six years.

The majority of the men took their own lives within days of being filmed, and named and shamed on social media.

But those behind the sting operations claim they are performing an important service - saying they help keep the public safe.

There have been several cases in Wales where paedophiles have been brought to justice after being caught by the so-called paedophile hunters.

Last year, Michael Munday was stopped at Cardiff Central railway station trying to meet a "teenage girl" for sex.

(Image: South Wales Police)

He was confronted by members of a paedophile hunting group and was jailed for four years at Cardiff Crown Court.

Cardiff chef Steven Baker was also jailed after he was confronted by a group. He had sent sexual messages to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

Despite Baker being told several times that the decoy was a 14-year-old girl, he continued to chat.

This is the moment he was confronted at work:

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

But in that case, while passing sentence Judge Geraint Walters criticised the paedophile-hunting group for filming Baker's arrest and publicising it because he had lost his accommodation as a result, which prevented the court from passing a more "onerous" community order which would help to rehabilitate the defendant.

On the Victoria Derbyshire show, one woman spoke out after her father, Michael Duff, took his own life after being labelled a child sex offender on social media. No charges were brought by police.

The 15-year-old girl her father thought he had been contacting was actually someone using fake profiles to try to attract and expose potential child sex offenders.

A video went up on Facebook and a friend alerted his daughter, Lesley, to it. Mr Duff handed himself into police that day and had his computer confiscated.

He was released after questioning and killed himself two days later.

Lesley told the BBC: "This could have been a one-off thing where he's done something stupid.

"I know people would say 'well the thought was there' but the reality is he may not have actually committed any crime at all.

"We don't know, because as soon as he took his own life the case was closed.

"I don't know what was on my dad's computer, if anything, and I'm never going to know because somebody deemed to put it all over Facebook rather than letting police deal with it."

You can watch part of that interview here:

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

She says she now lives with unanswered questions and has faced rape threats. In July 2015, while at home with her daughter, she was told about a video of her father being confronted by a paedophile hunter that had begun circulating widely on social media.

"My friend said, 'Look, I don't really know how to say this to you, Lesley, but there's a video going round on Facebook - it's your dad'," she said.

She told her daughter, who was also 15, something she now regrets, and neither of them ever spoke to Duff again.

(Image: South Wales Police)

Paedophile-hunting groups have to make sure they stay within the law in order to secure a conviction.

Steps like ensuring the paedophile makes contact first and that they are first to ask about a meeting means a better chance of conviction.

On some occasions, police do work with so-called paedophile hunters.

But the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) told the Victoria Derbyshire show that they can undermine police investigations with poor evidence. They are also worried about vigilante retaliation and suicides.

Last week, those concerns were aired by South Wales Police chief constable Matt Jukes, who said he would prefer it was "left to the professionals".

He said: "We will always rely on the public for information but I would much rather this incredibly high-risk area of policing was left to the professionals.

"It highlights to me the reality that on online chatrooms and other forums there is grooming taking place every single day so we need to make sure we have the resources in place – and we do have officers undercover online.

"Of course, if people come across information which identifies people who are grooming children then we want that information but I fundamentally believe it is an unacceptable risk for people to then move into the space of taking action themselves."

poll loading Do paedophile-hunters help or hinder the law? 5000+ VOTES SO FAR Help Hinder

Wales’ only paedophile hunting group explained to WalesOnline how they went about catching sexual predators online.

They said they were trying to tackle child exploitation on the internet and, at the time of the interview, had seen three men they'd spoken to convicted for trying to meet up with underage girls for sex, with many more set to face court.

One of them was 42-year-old Mark Pritchard, caught trying to meet an underage girl for oral sex. Pritchard arranged to meet the fictional teenager at a pub in Newport, believing her mother was not at home at her house nearby. But he was detained by the group and later jailed for a year.

(Image: Petronus/Facebook)

One of the group's members said: “The adult always approaches us first, we never approach them. As soon as they start talking to us, we tell them our age, which can range from 11 to 15. There are other groups who have used people who are a lot younger than that.

“As soon as we say our age, they should stop talking to us. The majority of them don’t.

(Image: Wales On Sunday)

“We just pursue the conversation with them then. They keep chatting to us and it can range from what they’re doing in the day to all of a sudden a picture of a penis sent through.”

You can read more of that interview here.