A POLICE chief last night condemned student film makers who shot footage of a spoof burglary - while five police officers allegedly stood idly by.
The video being shown on the YouTube website purports to show a burglary taking place at a house under the noses of Middlesbrough police officers.
An investigation has been launched into the authenticity of the film, which received 30,000 hits on the YouTube website.
The film, which is suspected to have been made up of "spliced" footage, was shot at the time of the Armistice Day parade in Middlesbrough, in November 2004.
It is understood officers have identified the film-makers and are linking them to other hoax videos, including fake murders and crashes.
Spliced footage involves shooting two videos and then joining them to look like one event.
A police source said: "The YouTube footage was taken on Armistice Day, November 11, 2004. It is clearly a prank, the aim of which was to embarrass the police. We cannot prove or disprove the authenticity of the footage, but we have our concerns.
"It would seem odd on such a day as Armistice Day, when there were so many people around, that nothing was seen and no suspicious incident or crime was reported."
Ron Hogg, Deputy Chief Constable of Cleveland Police, said: "The force regrets that individuals responsible for the footage saw fit to carry out such a prank during the Armistice Day parade. It is very sad they had nothing better to do on such a poignant day as this."
The five uniformed officers in the video are all police community support officers - not full time officers. They were specifically delegated to watch that no one disrupted the parade.
The video purports to show a hooded burglar scale the side of a house, remove a box from a windowsill, then, with two pals walk nonchalantly passed the on duty officers.
An individual claiming to have been in on the hoax, has posted a comment on the site saying: "We set up the camera opposite our house while all the police were there, opened the window ajar and three of my friends looked like they were breaking in and stole an empty cardboard box.
"If they did talk to us, we could just say that it was our house and we were making a video for university or something.
"It is real in so far as there were police there with the opportunity to arrest us, but they didn't even notice.
"There is absolutely no editing," he added.
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