A group of Southend residents confronted and detained three foreign tourists after wrongly deeming them to be paedophiles.
The group of locals surrounded three Greek tourists and prevented them from moving on after observing them taking photos of water fountains in an area where children were playing along the Essex seafront.
The residents went on to seize the three men’s phones, with one of the group uploading pictures of them onto Facebook claiming a “paedophile ring” had been “smashed".
The Facebook post has reportedly been shared 13,000 times.
Martin Richardson, a seafront trader at Happidrom arcade, raised concerns the incident could be “detrimental to the seafront”.
He told the Southend Echo: “People have now got it in their heads there are paedophiles lurking around the seafront when these tourists… were only taking pictures of the fountains so they could suggest something similar back home.
“We are a tourist destination – we openly welcome people to come here and visit and look at the unique features we have here. We don’t need people scaring them off with silly things like that.”
Officers called to Marine Parade on Friday afternoon found no offences had been committed and the pictures were simply images of the general seafront.
An Essex police spokesman said: "The photographs were reviewed by officers who found no offences had been committed."
Additional reporting by Press Association
