A young woman was shocked when she checked CCTV after her mobile phone vanished.
Student nurse Chloe McGibbon, 19, realised her phone was missing after an early morning visit to a city centre kebab shop at the end of a night out in town.
This was the second time in a month that the second year Liverpool John Moores University student had lost her phone, leaving her with a contract to pay off but no iPhone 13 to show for it.
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The young woman, from Armagh in Northern Ireland, said she "panicked" when she checked the CCTV of the Slater Street takeaway.
She watched a man sneak up on her near the right-hand side of the screen, slipping her phone from her pocket as she waited at the kebab shop counter.
Chloe told the ECHO: "I actually had no words. I just wanted to scream. He did that so easily.
"It was frustrating because if I'd have buttoned my pocket, he wouldn't have been able to get into it.
"Because I lost my phone the last time when I was out, I kept checking my pocket to make sure my phone was there.
"That was when I was in the nightclub. When I was actually in the kebab shop, I just didn't think. I didn't think I needed to.
"I could see everyone. There was space. You just don't think it's going to happen in a kebab shop."
She added: "Even watching the video, it was frustrating because I realised how easily it was done.
"Nobody noticed. The amount of people who were in that shop and not one person saw him put his hand in my pocket."
One of the only ways to stay in contact with friends and family in Northern Ireland, Chloe lost her cure to homesickness.
When her previous phone was stolen just before Christmas, she also lost the driving licence she kept in the phone case.
Until she replaced the phone, Chloe would have to travel to and from her placement at Whiston Hospital, waiting alone at bus stops at night with no means of contacting anyone.
Chloe reported the phone's theft to the police.
A spokesperson for Merseyside Police told the ECHO: "At around 3.45pm on Monday 17 January officers were called to a report of a stolen item on Slater Steet in Liverpool.
"It was reported that at around 3.45am on Sunday 16 January a woman's phone was taken at Mr Kebab on Slater Street.
"Officers are currently carrying out CCTV enquiries."
Anyone with information on this incident is asked to contact @MerPolCC, or @CrimestoppersUK on 0800 555 111.
