A Brisbane boxer who set up and attacked a man he suspected of being a paedophile in a so-called “vigilante honeytrap” has cautioned others against trying to copy what he did.
Cooper Watt, 20, admitted in court this week that he and two underage offenders targeted the 70-year-old after making contact with him through the gay dating app Grindr.
The court was told the group posed as a 15-year-old boy, sent the man a naked image and organised to meet him at a park in Deception Bay, north of Brisbane, in January 2025.
During the confrontation, they repeatedly labelled the man a paedophile as they assaulted him, then forced him to take $3,000 from a nearby ATM before leaving him bruised and injured.
Watt pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of robbery in company with personal violence and was sentenced to two years in prison, with parole granted immediately.
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.
Cooper Watt, 20, lured a suspected paedophile to a park before bashing him last year in a ‘vigilante-style honeytrap’
The Muay Thai athlete has warned others against similar actions
‘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.
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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.
Prosecutor Zachary Kaplan said the violent assault had been inspired by the ‘manosphere epidemic’ as seen in Louis Theroux’s ‘Inside the Manosphere’ documentary (pictured)
Brisbane man Oliver Conroy, 27, died last month after he was allegedly assaulted by a group of teens
‘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.