It's easy to understand why, in principle at least, some people would support the idea of paedophile hunters.
Exposing sex offenders and keeping children safe sounds like an honourable pursuit.
However, when last week a mob of so called predator hunters confronted and verbally assaulted BBC journalist Kevin Magee, in what was an uncomfortable five minutes of footage, it gave a remarkable insight into the kind of people who involve themselves with such groups.
What that recording and a later Nolan show interview with a man who described himself as "judge, jury and executioner" did was remove the myth that these people are some sort of caped crusaders protecting our children from perverts.
While many may be well intentioned - and as a parent I know nothing terrified me more when they were growing up than thinking my children may be preyed on by those with an unhealthy interest in harming them - the people fronting up those groups are certainly not heroes.
As a mother you do everything in your power to protect your children from harm of any kind. In the times we now live in that means educating and monitoring their social media use, which can be harmful in all manner of ways, in terms of peer bullying, self-image and of course sexual exploitation.
Online grooming is a very real problem and one that is best dealt with via education of our children and a robust and active police response along with judicial penalties.
There are up to 10 self-appointed paedophile hunting groups currently operating in Northern Ireland.
Often, they are in competition with one another, which indicates the real motive behind the organisations.
Of over 100 'stings' - videoed confrontations - put online live to capture the 'target's' response, none have resulted in conviction and just three have been passed to the Public Prosecution Service.
There have been several cases of mistaken identity, including a mob showing up at the door of a terrified single parent and her children not once but twice. When a local community worker pointed out they were at the wrong house and asked them to leave he told the BBC he was called a 'paedophile lover'.
During one such 'sting', a man with special needs was cornered for over 20 minutes, screamed at and didn't say a word back until police arrived.
The man has an IQ so low he is unlikely to be convicted in what would appear to be a case of entrapment of a vulnerable individual.
One man took his own life after a confrontation, two men in Rathcoole were beaten with hammers in a paramilitary style assault less than 24 hours after a 'sting'.
In researching this column, I had a look at the Facebook pages of some of these groups and it was an eye opener, and not a pleasant one.
The content is disturbing, posts with graphic and extreme violent fantasy and underlying misogyny, along with sexual content that makes me question the mental sanity and personal sexual preferences of some of those involved.
There is something sinister about a grown man or woman spending hours online pretending to be a teenager to try and lure a potential sex offender into conversing with them.
Leaving aside the fact we have no idea whether the people confronted are guilty or innocent of the online activity they are being accused of, and let's assume at least some are guilty of grooming online, the chances of getting a conviction based on 'evidence' collected by someone who calls himself the 'original paedophile hunter' is slim to none.
Any defence lawyer worth their legal aid could argue entrapment, impossibility of a fair trial due to the public nature of the stings and the people involved in the groups, some of whom the Sunday Life exposed last week as criminals and individuals on the fringes of paramilitary organisations.
By posting the 'stings' online for Facebook likes and online attention, rather than quietly passing any information to police, they scupper any chance of a conviction.
Suspects could argue they knew all along they were talking to a man with a beard and anger management issues and not a teenager and were just playing along with it.
Anyone convicted of an actual sexual offence is subject to monitoring by a number of agencies and the work they do is what actually keeps children safe.
The paedophile hunters, one of whom has now admitted his aim is to destroy lives and force people from their homes and jobs, undo that monitoring and actually endanger children by using police resources on investigations that are unlikely to go anywhere and making monitoring almost impossible.
Sex offenders need to face due process. Vigilantes with narcissistic egos and questionable backgrounds are not and never will be the answer.
