A 20-year-old man has been sentenced to eight months in prison for his involvement in a vigilante group that hunted down and attacked suspected pedophiles. This ruling was made by the Glostrup Court (Retten i Glostrup) on Wednesday.

The young man admitted to participating in two separate incidents in June, where suspected pedophiles were lured into traps, assaulted, filmed, and publicly humiliated. This phenomenon, known as “Pedo Hunter Denmark” (PHD), is described by the police as an issue that has been observed abroad but has now made its way to Denmark.

Police have previously monitored videos of this nature circulating on social media in Denmark, where men were exposed with their full identities and accused of being pedophiles. These videos were tagged with the initials “PHD,” representing the group to which the 20-year-old belonged.

The eight-month prison sentence serves as an important warning to others who might consider taking the law into their own hands.