The mother of a teenage girl targeted by a paedophile online has told The Argus she chose vigilantes over police to catch him.

When the woman learned her 13-year-old daughter had been receiving inappropriate messages from a man she contacted the “Shadow Hunters UK” group for help.

She said she did not think there was enough evidence to go to the police.

The group took over the girl’s conversation with Ian Collard and led him to Victoria Recreation Ground in Portslade where he was later arrested.

Collard, 28, of George William Mews, Portslade, appeared before Brighton Magistrates on June 4.

He pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a 13-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity following online grooming and will be sentenced on July 3.

The mother said her daughter was relieved he had been caught.

She said: “She was worried he might have seen a photo of her in her school uniform on her Facebook and might turn up at her school. I didn’t realise at the time how much it did affect her.

“She’s now very happy that he has been caught and says she doesn’t have to worry any more.”

The mother received a text from her daughter, who was in another room in the house, saying a “weird man” had contacted her on Facebook Messenger.

She explained: “My daughter tried to block him but couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working and he could still contact her, so I asked her to bring her phone to me.”

The mother said she gave the man the “benefit of the doubt” at first as her daughter sometimes sells unwanted items on the site.

She said: “I answered back with ‘hello’ at first.

“He asked how old I was, so I pretended to be my daughter and told him I was 13.

“Then he asked if we could go to the cinema and flirt in the back seat and this was when I realised what his intentions were.”

The mother decided to search online for groups who work to catch people who target children in this manner.

She said: “I just searched paedophile hunter on Facebook and Shadow Hunters was the first one to come up.”

When she contacted the group, she was told she had to two options – call the police or pass it over to them.

She said: “I decided to use Shadow Hunters because, at the time, there wouldn’t have been enough evidence for the police to have been able to do anything about it.

“I had to pass it over so the Shadow Hunters could build enough evidence of what this man’s true intentions were.”

A decoy from the vigilante group took over the girl’s Facebook account and continued the conversation with the man, which “turned pretty vile, pretty quickly”.

Once the group thought it had enough evidence for a sting, it led Collard to the park.

The mother said: “I have utmost respect for the Shadow Hunters they do an amazing job at protecting our children.

“They put a lot of work and effort and their own time into building a case.

“They have also supported me, my daughter and our family though the whole process. They deserve more recognition then they get. I cannot thank them enough.”

Sussex Police said such vigilante groups were “taking risks they don’t understand” and could undermine police investigations.