I pretended to be 15 to help catch a suspected paedophile….but I was branded a criminal instead: This is my warning to other Aussie vigilantes

A Brisbane boxer who lured a suspected paedophile to a park before bashing him in a ‘vigilante honeytrap’ has sent a warning to others planning to follow his example.

Cooper Watt, 20, this week admitted in court that he targeted the 70-year-old victim, along with two underage offenders, after they connected on gay dating app, Grindr.

The court heard the group masqueraded as a 15-year-old boy when they sent the man a naked image and arranged to meet him at a park in Deception Bay, in Brisbane’s north in January 2025.

They repeatedly called him a paedophile while assaulting him, forced him to withdraw $3,000 in cash from a nearby ATM and left him bruised and wounded.

Watt pleaded guilty to one count of robbery in company with personal violence on Wednesday and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with immediate parole.

The Muay Thai fighter was also ordered to pay $3,000 to the victim, with the conviction recorded. 

On Friday, Watt told the Daily Mail he regretted his actions and wanted to apologise, but said he didn’t think paedophiles deserve the ‘same chance in society’. 

‘Obviously paedophilia is horrible, it’s a very heinous crime and ruins lives, right? But does that give you the right to meet up with them at a park? Absolutely not,’ Watt said.

‘I do feel remorse for what I’ve done and I never got the chance to say that in court.

‘Regardless of what he was there to do, I was in the wrong, I did break the law and sometimes people act out of character and on impulse.’ 

Watt, who was 18 at the time of the incident, denied the attack was premeditated and said he wasn’t sure why the group did it in the first place.

He said the victim was the only person the group had tried to target, but was unsure if he was chosen at random by his co-offender, who had started the messaging.

Watt rejected the claims made in court by prosecutor Zachary Kaplan that the attack was a hate crime because the victim was a gay man. 

‘It absolutely wasn’t. I work with lots of gay people, I’m friends with gay people, my aunties are gay,’ he said.

Watt said that, in hindsight, the group should have contacted police instead of assaulting the man.

He is now warning other young men like him who are tempted to mount similar vigilante style attacks to think before they act, no matter what the temptation. 

‘Leave it to the police and don’t put it in your own hands,’ he said. ‘It’s not your responsibility, it’s theirs.

‘Whether they do their job or not is up to them.’

It comes after the court was told the assault was inspired by a ‘manosphere epidemic’ across social media.

‘It relates to what really is an epidemic, in relation to young men consuming theatre online and being encouraged to take back society from these people,’ the prosecutor told the court.

‘In this situation, this defendant and his two co-offenders have done exactly that.

‘Recently Louis Theroux released a documentary called Inside The Manosphere.

‘It addresses influences on social media platforms creating content where they lure what they consider to be paedophiles to a location, where they then extract vigilante justice.’

The comments come just weeks after another Brisbane man was the alleged target of a honeytrap-style incident.

Oliver Conroy, 27, was allegedly assaulted and carjacked in the inner Brisbane suburb of Kelvin Grove about 10.30pm on July 24.

He died two weeks later after receiving ‘catastrophic injuries’. 

Seven teenagers, including two girls aged 14 and 15, have been charged over his murder.

They are among 11 juveniles charged with murder under new Queensland laws.

If convicted, they face mandatory life sentences with a minimum of 20 years before parole under ‘adult crime, adult time’ laws introduced by Queensland’s Liberal National government.