Children as young as five have been filmed wearing balaclavas to steal from shops.

Erdogan Yigitoglu, 52, shared footage of the brazen raids at his store in Bournemouth.

He said the most shocking aspect of the spree was seeing parents ‘smiling’ outside waiting to ‘pat the child on the head’ afterwards.

‘The parents smiled and looked like they were saying “Well done”. I couldn’t believe it,’ Erdogan added.

Erdogan, who has run his shop in Bournemouth, Dorset, for 19 years, says he has lost thousands of pounds every year from burglary alone and it has also taken a toll on his mental health.

Over the last six years, however, the dad-of-three has found that publicly shaming thieves on social media and banning them from his shop is the best way to reduce crime.

His rogue gallery of footage shows the young thieves helping themselves to piles of chocolate bars, disposable BBQs worth £120 and an array of other items.

Erdogan said: ‘The incident with the young children in balaclavas was particularly shocking for me.

‘What upset me most was seeing very young children copying this kind of behaviour from adults.

‘What was even more disturbing was seeing the children take things from the shop and then go back to their mother, while she appeared to treat the situation as if it was normal, even smiling and patting the child on the head!

‘As a father myself, I found that extremely upsetting. I would never want children to grow up thinking that stealing is acceptable or something to be proud of.’

It comes as a justice minister warned that parents could face going to prison or having their benefits payments docked if their children commit crimes.

Jake Richards said the Government would put the onus on parents to do more to keep children out of trouble and that they would be ‘held to account’ if they did not.

He added that ‘the justice system should hold parents to account in a proportionate way for ensuring that they play their role in keeping communities safe’. His comments come amid reports of parents sending their young children into shops to steal.

Meanwhile, the UK and Ireland are both reeling from fatal crashes involving young people driving dangerously seemingly for  likes.

Nearly 30 people have been arrested in connection with the head-on collision which killed five young men and two police officers in Middlesbrough on August 22.

PC Tom Clough, 38, and PC Matthew Blades, 37, were killed when their marked response vehicle was hit by a Volkswagen Passat heading the wrong way down the dual carriageway.

Cole Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Cahill and Jakub Matusiak were in the Passat and were also killed in the crash.

Elsewhere, the first report from the inquiry into the Southport attack found Axel Rudakubana’s parents could have acted sooner to stop him killing three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop.

In an interview with the Times, Mr Richards said: ‘In my constituency, there’s a lot of problems with antisocial behaviour and young people causing problems in town centres.

‘And yes, when I knock on doors, people say we need more police. But they also say, “Well, what are the parents doing?”’

His comments indicate a continuation of plans from Sir ’s government where parents would face harsher consequences including heavier fines and prison sentences for their children’s crimes.

Ministers published a white paper in May calling for more parenting orders to be used. The proposals indicated they would be strengthened.

Mr Richards said: ‘Parenting orders are going to make sure that parents are more involved in the process by which we try to turn around young offenders.

‘Yes, that will have some stick. It could be custodial, or docking benefits — ultimately it will be up to a judge. But we want them to be more involved and that comes with responsibilities as well.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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