An Edinburgh paedophile hunter who left residents terrified during a confrontation with an alleged child sex offender has been banned from all hunter activity.
Gordon Buchan - leader of the notorious Wolf Pack Hunters UK - turned up at a block of flats in Edinburgh along with four unknown colleagues to carry out an online sting in March 2018.
Buchan and the gang wore masks and hoods when they challenged the man about his alleged online activities with Buchan heard branding the man “a dirty f***ing paedophile”.
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The 43-year-old paedo hunter boss live streamed the angry confrontation from his mobile phone to thousands of viewers on the WPH group’s Facebook page.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told the block of flats housed mainly “elderly and vulnerable residents” as well as “families with young children”.
Fiscal depute Matthew Miller described Buchan as “the leader of the group known as Wolf Pack Hunter UK” who were an “online activist group” who are “followed by around 150,000 people”.
Mr Miller said: “The aims of the group are to identify and expose people who engage in sexualised conversation online with parties they presume to be children.
“Around midday on March 3 2018 Mr Buchan attended at the locus with unknown parties connected to the Wolf Pack and they intended to confront a civilian witness who had been engaging in sexualised conversation online.
“It is unknown how Mr Buchan obtained the home address of the witness.”
The prosecutor said Buchan, from Maryhill, Glasgow, confronted the man at his front door and was heard shouting comments including “paedophile” and “you dirty f***ing paedophile”.
The court was told the paedo hunters “caused a great deal of disturbance within Carnegie Court” and residents later described the group’s behaviour as “intimidating” and “aggressive”.
Mr Miller added: “The group adopted aggressive stances and were pacing backwards and forwards.
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“One resident told officers that the shouting from Mr Buchan and the group had woken him and he had been “extremely alarmed by what he heard”.
Buchan had previously pleaded guilty to conducting himself in a disorderly manner and committing a breach of the peace at the man’s home and was back in the dock for sentencing last Thursday.
Sheriff Alistair Noble acknowledged Buchan had several previous convictions for similar offending but said he was “prepared to deal with this case in a non-custodial way”.
Buchan was banned from having any involvement with any paedophile hunter group for the next three years and placed on a supervision order for the same length of time.
Sheriff Noble also ordered Buchan to wear an electronic tag and stay within his home between the hours of 10pm and 7.30am for the next eight months.
Lawyer Gordon Stewart, defending, said his client had previously been forced to give up his role with the hunter group due to ill health and that he “had not intended to get in to trouble himself” during the incident.
Buchan pleaded guilty to conducting himself in a disorderly manner by attending at the property with others unknown and with their faces covered and did shout, swear, utter offensive remarks and place members of the public in state of fear and alarm and commit a breach of the peace at Carnegie Court, Edinburgh, on March 3, 2018.
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