A group of men taking photos of a tourist destination in a small British seafront town were confronted and detained by a mob of angry locals who wrongly accused them of being pedophiles.
Last week, three tourists and photo enthusiasts from Greece were surrounded by a group of residents in Southend, England after the group saw the men taking pictures of the shoreline while children were nearby, the Telegraph reported.
The men were surrounded by the group of locals and prevented from leaving the area until police arrived. One of the angry locals seized a phone from the tourists while another snapped a photo of the men and posted the image on Facebook saying the group had “smashed a pedophile ring,” the British newspaper reported.
The Facebook post – wrongly claiming the men were pedophiles – was shared more than 13,000 times.
A local vendor told the Southend Echo he was upset with the mob because now people think there are pedophiles lurking around a place the relies heavily on tourism.
“It’s detrimental to the seafront because people have now got it in their heads there are pedophiles lurking around the seafront when these tourists, who were all teachers, were only taking pictures of the fountains so they could suggest something similar back home,” Martin Richardson told the Echo. “But some stupid girl decided she’d ‘smashed a pedophile ring’ on Southend seafront and it’s been shared about 13,000 times on Facebook.”
“I had three people come into my shop asking about it but these poor people were just unaware of the English ‘etiquette’ that if you take pictures of children you’re suddenly a pedophile – as though pedophiles come down to the seafront in plain sight wearing cameras with big lenses on,” Richardson added.
The newspaper reported police arrived at the scene and found none of the men had committed an offence.
“The photographs were reviewed by officers who found no offences had been committed. The photos were of the general seafront area,” the Echo quoted a police officer as saying.
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