Dark reason To Catch a Predator was cancelled as Robert Pattinson announced to be playing presenter
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
Robert Pattinson will be starring as To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in the upcoming movie Primetime, and the show itself was taken off the air after things went quite wrong.
To Catch a Predator still has a big cultural impact in the US, though it only ran for 20 episodes between 2004 and 2007, as it lured a series of men to a 'sting house' where they thought they'd be meeting someone underage for sex.
Instead they'd be confronted by Hansen, who would ask them what they thought they were going to be doing at the house after all the messages they'd sent to someone claiming to be a child but was actually part of the watchdog group Perverted Justice.
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Many of the men were arrested after being confronted at the 'sting house', sometimes in dramatic fashion, and Hansen said the men involved should be considered 'potential sexual predators' since there was a very specific definition to being a paedophile.
While the movie Primetime examines the origins of To Catch a Predator, the show was cancelled in 2008 following a mounting backlash.
Why To Catch a Predator was cancelled
While Hansen said in 2015 to Time that it had just run its course and they had 'proved our point', the suicide of one of the men invited to a sting house is considered to have contributed.
However, the show's most controversial moment was likely the suicide of Bill Conradt in 2006.
He had been an assistant district attorney in Texas and had been in contact with a Perverted Justice volunteer pretending to be a 13-year-old boy who was housesitting for neighbours while they were away.
Conradt eventually stopped responding to the messages the volunteer was sending him and didn't show up at the sting house when invited.
To Catch a Predator deviated from their usual routine and decided to go to Condrat's house with the police as warrants for his arrest and the search of his house were obtained.
On 5 November, 2006, A SWAT team entered Conradt's house and found him in a hallway and Esquire reported that the officers heard him say something along the lines of 'I'm not going to hurt anyone' before he put his own gun against his head and pulled the trigger.
Conradt died within 60 minutes of shooting himself, while one of the police officers turned to a camera and said 'that'll make good TV'.
His sister later sued Dateline for $105 million and settled out of court.
More backlash against To Catch a Predator
To Catch a Predator was always a controversial show given its subject matter, with critics while it was still on the air wondering whether they took things too far.
In 2006, Brian Montopoli wrote for CBS that while the actions of the men featured on To Catch a Predator were 'disturbing', he warned that the show ran the risk of entrapment and that 'identifying someone as a child molester on national television' was a form of punishment being carried out by people who weren't law enforcement.
Local areas where the show operated also objected as they didn't want potential sexual predators being directed to houses in their neighbourhood.
In 2008 after the remaining episodes of To Catch a Predator were aired the show was cancelled.
Topics: Robert Pattinson, Crime, TV
Joe Harker