Perth students charged over assaults in scheme to ‘catch paedophiles’
Image: (PHOTO: Ann-Marie Calilhanna; Star Observer)
Seven Perth students, aged between 15 and 17, have been charged over a series of muggings and one assault last weekend in a vigilante plot to catch paedophiles.
that up to ten students may have been involved in the plan, with six boys and one girl charged over the incidents so far.
The students allegedly set up fake profiles on Grindr to draw men to public parks around Scarborough in order to mug them.
Three of the victims were allegedly robbed, with one incident .
The group were reportedly acting on the belief they were delivering vigilante justice, though further details of the circumstances are not yet confirmed.
that a 15-year-old girl and and 16-year-old boy have been charged with aggravated robbery, with a 16- and 17-year-old boys from Doubleview charged with both aggravated robbery and assault with the intent to rob.
All the students are said to attend the same high school, with potentially more of those involved yet to be charged.
They will face Children’s Court in Perth on August 21.
As , Perth man James Joseph Katchan was jailed for six years last year for using Grindr to assault men under the banner of vigilante justice.
Anyone with information about the incidents should .
‘Vigilanty justice’ needs to be stopped now. I don’t want a return to the ninety’s when a gay man was lured to Alexandria Park and killed by school kids. Then a teacher at the school across the road was murdered in his own home, again by school students. The same sex marriage marriage debate has brought all the fundamentalist creeps out of the woodwork sprouting hate allegedly sanctioned by religion. With half the school population and indeed half the general population with IQ’s under 100, extremists don’t have to look very far to find those who can be talked into thinking gay equals pedophile. I am an educator and have had students come to me with gay and lesbian slurs, forgetting for a moment that I’m an out lesbian. They apologise profusely when I remind them of my sexuality, but the fact that some kids can be so easily swayed is a real worry.
15 – 17 years old is NOT a , “schoolkid”.
In many decades and cultures, these are ADULTS who are heads of families and soldiers. To use that term is ridiculous and makes it sound as though primary school children were playing a prank.
How about reporting this with the seriousness it deserves? I’m no fan of pedo’s but neither am I a fan of vigilantly-style retribution (especially where it involves violence and robbery!).
Jane, this has been reported very seriously. Not to pull the dictionary definition card, but a ‘schoolkid’ is “a child or teenager attending school”. Which is exactly what they are. They are also under 18, meaning they have been charged as minors under the law – which is also why they cannot be named. They are not adults in the context of this story.