https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07p9ng1zvno
In January 1997, long before the modern phenomenon of online "paedophile hunters", a Scottish grandmother found overnight fame when she successfully drove a convicted child sex offender out of the Raploch housing estate in Stirling.
Margaret 'Big Mags' Haney and her brand of mob justice transformed her into a matriarchal media personality.
One of her most famous appearances was on the popular daytime TV show Kilroy where she was invited to discuss the 'paedophile panic' that was sweeping the county.
Haney argued with the show's host, squabbled with other guests, and threatened two men in the audience, clearly wearing disguises, who had been convicted of abusing kids.
Her profile skyrocketed and in her new role as a self-styled anti-paedophile campaigner she began to pop up at protests across the country.
[...]
But Haney was harbouring a secret and it wasn't long before it came out.
Six months after Haney's vigilantism, and her steep rise to fame, the press's focus shifted to the Haney family's criminal rap sheet.
Big Mags was the head of a "one family crime wave" responsible for thefts and violence across Stirling.
They were dubbed "Scotland's Family from Hell" by the tabloids.
"Some of them could have scores of crimes against their name," the Daily Record's Mark McGivern remembers.
"The amount of crimes committed in Stirling by that family was the stuff of legend so they weren't great to have around," he says.
With the family's crimes exposed and the local community's patience at an end, Big Mags and the Haneys were forced to leave the estate by a 400-strong mob - bigger than the one whipped up to remove the paedophile Alan Christie six months earlier.
The crowd gathered near Mags's flat, chanting "build a bonfire and put the Haneys on the top".
As the chants got louder, police vans screeched into Huntly Crescent to prevent a riot.
Haney came out in pink t-shirt and slippers and gave the crowd the finger as she was led away for her own safety.
