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A pensioner who tried to give away leftover Halloween sweets to local children got a nasty surprise - when a woman helped herself to nearly the lot.
Michael Rutter, 71, had 20 bags of confectionery to spare after buying them for trick-or-treaters, so he put them on the wall outside his Croydon home in two buckets.
He left them with a handmade sign, reading: “Help yourself to a bag of sweets. Leave the bucket.”
But when they had all gone within seconds, he checked footage on the security camera outside his property to see what had happened.
Help yourself: The woman takes sweets from two buckets outside a wall in South Croydon meant for childrenYouTubeThe 71-year-old told the Croydon Advertiser he checked his CCTV after hearing a car being driven away and noticing his buckets were almost empty.
He told the newspaper: "A woman just pulled up and took the lot. She got armfuls of sweets, she was just loading them up. It just made me laugh really. At least she left the buckets."
A friend, who uploaded the footage to YouTube, said: “A friend of mine was doing the charitable good thing of offering free sweets to South Croydon's trick or treat children when this opportunist woman thought see would steal the whole stash just for herself.”
Mr Rutter said the woman later knocked on his door to apologise, saying she had taken the sweets for her children.