NAUGHTY children who stole from Santa were chased down by a posse of Father Christmases out on a charity bike ride.

The extraordinary scenes took place around the streets of Halstead during a charity event to raise money for children with brain tumours in honour of 13-year-old Arran Tosh who died in 2014.

A 30-strong team of Father Christmasses set off on a bicycle pub crawl to raise cash but while Santa supped in Scenarios a boy decided to steal his ride.

Victim Jordan Tuthill, who had borrowed the bike worth several hundreds of pounds from his father, said: “We had been to about four different pubs before we got to Scenarios.

“We popped our bikes up outside on the wall.

“I had been offered a chain and lock by my dad but thought there wasn’t much need for it in Halstead.

“As soon as I found out it was missing I thought my dad was going to kill me.

“We checked on the hotel’s CCTV and could see it was three kids who were probably only aged about 12.

“They had been looking at all of the bikes and had picked out mine then headed off with it towards the football club.”

A group of cycling Santas went off in search and came across the youths later in the evening.

Mr Tuthill said: “ They denied it at first but they got scared when I rang the police and took me to where they had hidden it.

“They had hidden it really well. It was deep in the woods behind the football club, I would never have found it.”

Mr Tuthill did speak to the police but decided not to take it any further.

He added: “I had a little go at them and told them off.

“I probably should have got ID from them but I was just relieved to get the bike back. We couldn’t believe we had found them.

“It was about 90 minutes between them stealing the bike and us finding them.”

The charity cycle route took in Gosfield, Sible Hedingham, Castle Hedingham, Sudbury and Halstead.

The crime fighting Santas were able to meet up with the rest of the group and continue on with their charity ride, on Saturday, December 16. Despite the setback the charity event is estimated to have raised hundreds of pounds for the Smile of Arran Trust set up to help those battling brain tumours. Visit smileofarran.org.