SOCIAL media paedophile hunters are not breaching the human rights of the child sex abusers they target, the Supreme Court has ruled. 

The justices said the "interests of children have priority over any interest a paedophile could have" in being allowed to engage in criminal conduct.

The highest court in the land was approached by Mark Sutherland, who was convicted in August 2018 of attempting to communicate indecently with an older child, and related offences.

The 38-year-old was snared by a vigilante group pretending to be a 13 year-old boy on the Grindr dating app.

He sent the pretend teenager explicit images and made arrangement to to meet the boy for sex. 

But when he turned up at Patrick Bus Station, instead of the child, he was met by members of the Groom Resisters Scotland vigilante group.

The confrontation was broadcast on social media.

Sutherland was jailed for a total for two years.

He brought a Supreme Court challenge arguing that his right to a private life, enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, had been breached by Groom Resisters.

The court was asked to rule on the issue of whether prosecutions based on evidence gathered in covert sting operations by paedophile hunter groups are compatible with a person's human rights.

In the ruling, a panel of five justices unanimously dismissed Sutherland's appeal and said the public prosecutor was entitled to introduce evidence obtained by a "decoy" at Sutherland's trial to try to secure a conviction.

Announcing the court's decision, Lord Sales said the court held there was "no interference with the accused's rights" under Article 8 - which provides the right to a private life and correspondence.

He said: "It is implicit in Article 8 that in order to be protected the activity in question should be capable of respect within the scheme of values which the Convention on Human Rights exists to protect and promote.

"Children have rights under Article 8 as well. Under that provision, the state has a special responsibility to protect children against sexual exploitation by adults.

"This indicates that there is no protection under Article 8 for the communications by the accused in this case. The interests of children have priority over any interest a paedophile could have in being allowed to engage in the criminal conduct in issue here.

"Since the state has to deter offences against children in order to protect their rights, the public prosecutor was entitled to introduce the evidence from the decoy at the trial of the accused to try to secure a conviction."

The court also found that Sutherland had "no reasonable expectation of privacy".

Lord Sales said: "His communications were sent directly to the decoy. There was no prior relationship between the accused and the decoy from which an expectation of privacy could be said to arise.

"In addition, the accused believed he was communicating with a 13-year-old child, and it was foreseeable that a child of that age might share any worrying communications with an adult."