An aggressive community demonstration took place outside the house of an alleged paedophile in Armadale, Scotland last night (June 26).
The enraged scenes, which reportedly went on from around 10pm to 5am, were captured on camera by father of two Gary Easton, and show people screaming and shouting at the house of the accused.
An eyewitness reported seeing ‘between 50 and 60 police officers’, who eventually arrested and charged a 52-year-old man ‘in connection with indecent communications’.
Here is the footage taken at around 11.15pm last night:
A Police Scotland spokesman said:
Police in West Lothian were called to an address in the Armadale area at around 7.25pm on Tuesday 26 June following reports of a disturbance.
Local and specialist officers attended where a demonstration was found to be taking place.
A 52-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with indecent communications.
A 36-year-old man was arrested and charged in connection with wilful fire-raising and is due to appear at Livingston Sheriff Court today (Wednesday 27 June).
We recognise the right to peaceful protest and will ensure lawful protests are policed appropriately. Our priority is to keep people safe and prevent them putting themselves or others in danger.
Officers will be carrying out further inquiries and high visibility patrols in the area today.
The demonstration was reportedly started by a paedophile hunter group who allege they used decoy social media accounts, of a 12-year-old boy and girl, to identify their target.
Easton cited the ‘power of Facebook’ as the reason behind the overt reaction from locals, saying some people were there from early in the day reporting via Facebook Live.
Speaking to UNILAD, the man who took the video, 27-year-old Gary, said:
I came back from work about half five and had got wind that the guy who lived at that house was on the sex offenders register and had been talking to the decoys on Facebook, a young lass and young laddy.
A paeodophile hunter group try and catch all these predators and put out decoys for them, he was mailing a decoy that was supposed to be a 12-year-old wee boy and a 12-year-old wee lass.
Everybody got wind of it and the whole of Armadale came out in the street. Because of all the commotion the police were phoned and I’m not even joking, I think the whole of the West Lothian police force was out there.
All day there were people standing outside his house shouting that they want him out, paedophile this, paedophile that. I’m not sure when the police showed up, but when I got back there at around 10pm, there were police at every single junction. I would say easily 50 to 60 officers.
To start off with people were shouting abuse to get him out and then people lost the plot. Then when the police arrived then it started to get agitated because the guy was still in the house and with the number of children on the street, so they didn’t want the guy living in the house.
Describing the atmosphere on the street, Gary said:
Oh my god the atmosphere was like a football match. It was like being at a football match and someone had scored. When he came out the property, there was a massive uproar. There were people shouting and screaming, and I’m not even joking, I’ve got goosebumps thinking about it.
Honestly, I’ve never witnessed [anything] like that in my life. When he came out the property, put it this way, if the police weren’t there and he came out that property with all the people standing there, honestly there would have been a murder. It really was that bad.
Yes there were lots of kids out, that’s just the street. I think that’s why people were so angry about it because there are a lot of children about. My partner said she has seen this guy walking past her house every single day walking his dog and he’s stopped and talked to my kids who are only two and three.
The man police arrested is scheduled to appear at Livingston Sheriff Court on Thursday June 28.
On the night, two people were issued with a fixed penalty ticket in connection with a breach of the peace.
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