Sheffield man ambushed by 'paedophile hunters' in bid to clear his name

A Sheffield man ambushed by so-called ‘paedophile hunters’ has launched a bid to clear his name after the police dropped the case against him.
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Adrian Bingham, aged 29, was arrested by South Yorkshire Police in April 2019 after an online paedophile hunter group confronted him at his mum’s Wincobank home and streamed the ambush live on Facebook.

Mr Bingham was held in police custody for nearly 24 hours while footage of the sting was viewed around 5,000 times.

Adrian BinghamAdrian Bingham
Adrian Bingham
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He was held on suspicion of sexual grooming and possessing indecent images of children after being accused of contacting young girls on an online app.

But this week Mr Bingham discovered that the case against him had been dropped by South Yorkshire Police.

An email from the force sent to Mr Bingham’s support worker states: “The investigation into Adrian Bingham has now been filed with no criminal action to take place.”

Mr Bingham, who attempted suicide while waiting for the police investigation to conclude, is planning legal action against the paedophile hunters.

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He said a fake profile using his photograph was set up on the app in question and insists he never contacted young children.

“When the paedophile hunters turned up they put a mobile phone in my face and were making accusations without giving me the chance to respond,” he said.

“I was scared and intimidated and even though I knew I was innocent I had to wait for nearly 18 months for the case to be dropped.

“I never left my home for six months unless it was for a walk in the middle of the night so that people could not abuse me.

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“It has been hell and I tried to kill myself because I was so down.”

Mr Bingham’s mum died after losing her battle with cancer before the case was closed.

His brother Karl said: “These groups need to be more responsible.

“If they have evidence of people planning on meeting up with children and they catch them red handed, then they should definitely call the police, but that was not the case with my brother. There was a fake profile set up, he was not involved.”

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