Shocking video footage has emerged of a man and a young boy in Halloween masks appearing to steal a Samsung mobile phone from the bar of a snooker club.
The man, who was also wearing a cape, and the boy were seen holding buckets by the bar in the Lanterns Club in Folkestone, in Kent, at 6.16pm yesterday.
CCTV showed the man, dressed as a vampire, scouring the bar area, while giving orders to the child.
After lurking suspiciously near the bar for a few seconds the pair momentarily disappeared from view.
The boy was then seen appearing to snatch the Samsung S8 from the bar before running off.
The mobile phone belongs to owner Darren Smith.
The man and the boy, wearing masks, were seen lurking by the bar in the snooker club in Kent
The man holds a hand out to the boy during the apparent burglary at the snooker club yesterday evening
Ingrid Smith, who owns the pool and snooker club with her husband Darren, told MailOnline: ‘It’s disgusting.
‘We have a door which locks behind customers but we think the man and the boy came in when two men went outside.
‘My husband and I were in the back, away from the bar and they could obviously hear us talking as you could see him looking through to the back.
‘I was shocked when I saw he got the little boy to come back and get the phone. You just don’t expect that, and with him wearing Halloween costumes as a disguise. It’s terrible.
‘I’m fuming that he’s used that child to take the phone – the little boy was only little, probably about six or seven.
‘If you look at the footage you can see him walk away and then he gets the little boy to go and run over and take the phone.
‘Nothing like this has ever happened before and you wouldn’t have dreamt it up.
After disappearing from view, the boy came back into the camera before appearing to steal the phone
‘We know all our members and to come in here, you would have to know where you were going.
‘Nobody in here is like that at all and it obviously wasn’t until we realised that the phone was missing that we looked on the cameras and saw what had happened.’
She said the new Samsung phone, which belongs to her husband, was locked and so will probably be useless to the thief.
The club have warned others in the area to take care.
The boy then ran after the man after appearing to steal the phone from the bar in Folkestone
A spokesman for Kent Police told MailOnline: ‘We received a report of burglary at The Lanterns in Folkestone on Wednesday 11 October 2017.
‘It is believed that two people entered a business premises at around 6.15pm in Rendezvous Street and stole a mobile phone.’
Anyone who saw anything suspicious or who has information that could assist officers should call Kent Police on 01843 222289 and quote ZY/049078/17.