This is the moment a six foot tall festive nutcracker soldier statue is swiped by motorbike thieves from outside a town centre restaurant in broad daylight.
The daring duo fled with the model which stood on guard outside a fine dining venue in the middle of a busy Kent high street.
As customers tucked into their Christmas treats at Cafe Nucleus in Rainham on Friday lunchtime, the 40kg military minstrel was whisked away along the busy A2, narrowly missing passing cars in the getaway.
Police have been called in to crack the case and the owner Aaron Sergejenkovs Telford has issued an appeal for the safe return of Istvan, named after the member of staff who tends to him.
Aaron is clueless as to why the thieves took the statue, he said: “I have no idea. I don’t think they are the cheapest things in the world to buy.
“It was lunchtime as well. I mean maybe I could understand if it was a Christmas party or something and people were fairly merry and decided to take it in a drunken moment, but it was 12:53 in the afternoon."
Still awol after three days, Aaron is considering offering a reward.
Meanwhile, he has ordered two replacements costing about £400 for the Christmas display to accompany Istvan’s companion Roland.
Sightings have been reported in the town including near Rainham School for Girls in Derwent Way and in Nursery Road after the 10-second snatch.
Multiple customers have also called the restaurant to report sightings of the bike outside a nearby address.
A driver, whose vehicle was almost hit by the culprits as they rode along the High Street, reported his encounter to staff who were blissfully unaware of the drama.
Aaron, who opened his latest Nucleus eatery and gallery in October, said: “We’ve been broken into before, but nothing like this.
“We’d hope that someone has just borrowed it and we won’t let this deter us from doing it again.
"It is just one of those things, there is always going to be somebody out there who wishes to ruin things, but we are not going to stop doing what we do and doing nice things just because of one little occurrence.
“It is very odd. We have called out on social media asking if we can have him back."
His social media post read: “Such a shame today a pair of young gents pinched one of our nutcrackers from outside of Cafe Nucleus Rainham.
“We have the whole event, including images of the motorcycle and the culprits' faces, on camera. We really would just like the nutcracker back.
“It’s a shame for us as we in our other sites through the Medway Towns have never had this.”
All the information and footage has been passed over to the police, who Aaron hopes will help him get the statues back.
A police spokesman said: “Kent Police received a report of a theft of a decorative Christmas statue outside a shop in Rainham High Street at 1.35pm on Friday, December 8. Enquiries are ongoing.”
Aaron, who went to school and used to live in Rainham, and his partner Sergejs Sergejenkovs, had been looking at properties in the area for years before taking over the former solicitors’ office last year.
The venue was opened in October this year after a £400,000 refurbishment.
The couple love Christmas, and like to extravagantly decorate all four of their restaurants every year.
Aaron said: “As a company we are quite odd and we like to go big for Christmas, we keep our decorations up until the 7th of February.
“We have Christmas trees outside, Christmas trees all in the garden, the building has got around 60,000 lights draped down it. We go really over the top.
“It is important for us to go really big out here in Medway so that we can show people you don’t need to go to London to get that Christmassy feeling."
