Not all heroes wear capes - some just wear their daughter's make-up.
After a member of his family was caught up in an online romance scam and hoodwinked out of thousands of pounds, 39-year-old David Walker decided to dish out some vigilante justice.
The father of two, sick and tired of all the evil and injustice he saw in the world, decided it was time to take the law into his own hands and, like all good fledgling superheroes, set about creating an alias and a slick costume.
But instead of wrapping himself up in lycra and wearing a mask, David decided it would be more effective for nabbing his particular demographic of criminal if he dressed up as a lady , and slapped on some make-up instead.
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And here's the best part: David has actually ensnared numerous criminals with his cunning disguise.
Shortly after dolling himself up and posting a fake profile online under the pseudonym 'Julian Le Flange', the Newcastle dad was approached by a 'religious pastor' from Nigeria who quickly declared his love, before asking for $900 (£690) so that he could get a flight to the UK and be together with his 'sweet lady'.
After stringing the obvious scammer along for a good chunk of time, David posted screenshots of the exchange online and the scammer was bombarded with thousands of prank messages. Read an excerpt from the conversation below:
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David explained: "I was inspired to start doing this because I have a good friend whose mother unfortunately fell victim to one of these scammers and she lost thousands of pounds.
"Unfortunately lots of people do get stitched up by these conmen. She was very embarrassed about what happened and it had a very negative effect on her. My friend really likes what I'm doing and is supportive of it.
"I roped in my daughter to put some make-up on me for the photo as Julian. I can't say I enjoyed it but she certainly found it funny to make her dad look silly.
"It did the trick though as people think it's a woman."
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He continued: "To lure them in, I just go on my Facebook as Julian and use the account to comment on popular stories on news articles. Soon enough these conmen start contacting you as they see you active.
"I always report them to Facebook but often there's nothing they can do because they've not yet committed a crime.
"Instead, I often get banned. I've had my account suspended around five times."
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Describing the conversation above, David said: "The man mistook me for a woman and was trying to romance me in a confidence trick to get money on the pretence of a flight over to the UK - but of course he would never turn up.
"Once I shared the pictures on my Facebook of how I had strung him along for so long, he then started getting loads of messages from everyone giving him lots of abuse.
"He then came back to me demanding I tell everyone to stop messaging him. He got to the point where he was very angry indeed and he did everything from rant and rage to grovel. He was begging me to get people to stop harassing him, it was hilarious.
"However I didn't want to help him, hopefully now he will think twice about doing it again.
"It is nice to see him get a taste of his own medicine. He was eventually forced to delete his account."
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And David isn't done dispensing justice just yet: "I will carry on doing this and exposing more scammers," he says. "If it just puts off one person, it's worth it."
Words: Paddy Maddison