Paedophile hunters - are they actually helping the police tackle crime or doing more harm than good?

A paedophile-hunting group yesterday defended its tactics after an RTE television sports producer who was confronted when he travelled to the UK to meet what he thought was a 13-year-old girl pleaded guilty to sex offences. Kieran Creaven flew from Dublin to Leeds to meet a "girl" he had groomed outside the city's Queens Hotel. But the fictional teenager had been created by Leeds-based group Predator Exposure. When the 55-year-old turned up for the meeting, he was confronted by members of the group, who streamed the encounter live on the internet. Outside court one of the group's members Phil defended their sting, saying: "If this was a job for the police, I'm sorry to say this man would never have been caught." But last week the PSNI warned so-called paedophile vigilante groups here that their activities could potentially undermine ongoing investigations. So are they actually helping the police tackle crime or doing more harm than good? Vinny got the views of Jim Gamble, the former head of the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre and the commentator Fionola Meredith.