This is Leicestershire --Internet vigilantes who identify alleged paedophiles by posing online as young girls say they have helped police arrest seven suspects in the past month.
However, the group, which visits a range of social networking sites pretending to be a 14-year-old girl, was warned yesterday that it could jeopardise criminal prosecutions.
The group attracted national attention after filming members confronting suspects and then posting the footage online.
However, a police spokeswoman said: "While we understand the strong feelings that motivate this kind of activity, it can seriously affect the chances of success in court, preventing victims from getting justice.
"Any paedophile investigations we conduct are done in the strict rigour of the law to ensure we have strong, sound evidence to prosecute.
"We work closely with specialist agencies such as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), the NSPCC and other crime agencies to disrupt child abuse.
"We assure people our work preventing and investigating child abuse, current and historic, is a full-time operation.
"The best thing people can do if they have evidence of child abuse or paedophile activity is report it to the police, Crimestoppers or CEOP so we can conduct a thorough investigation and make sure that measures are put in place to ensure the safety of potential victims."
Police confirmed they had arrested four people in connection with the group's allegations. It is believed three other men have been arrested by the West Midlands and Warwickshire forces.
The founder of the group, a father-of-one who lives in the Hinckley area, began visiting online chat rooms as a fictitious 14-year-old girl this year.
He said he decided to launch his campaign after a friend was convicted of offences against a child and possession of indecent images of children.
He said: "The first thing we say when we get into conversations online is 'I am only 14 years old'.
"We are absolutely clear about that and we repeat the age throughout any conversations we have online.
"But we have still received highly sexual responses – in one case within 10 minutes of posting the girl's profile on a site.
"When we have met men in public there is an adrenaline rush.
"If I stop one of these people who target children online then I have potentially saved a lot of children from being abused.
"There are people out there who are doing work like this for profit but we are doing it because we want to save children from paedophiles.
"I am totally against violence and I have said from day one if anyone we film is assaulted in any way, we would stop doing this straight away."
The group has agreed to remove any film of members confronting suspects once an arrest has been made, but would publish the footage again in the event of a conviction. Reported by This is 2 days ago.