A YOUNG girl, possibly as young as eight, was involved in a carefully planned theft of hundreds of pounds from a shop in York city centre.

Micklegate Action Group has warned traders on the street to be vigilant after the “family” of thieves made off with £400 in cash.

Jack Baber, owner of Bill Baber Designer Knitwear, said that when the group, which looked like a husband, wife and daughter, entered his shop on Monday lunchtime, he had no reason to see them as a risk.

They were foreign and did not speak much English, like many of the tourists he gets in his shop, he said.

While they were browsing, the young girl asked for a brooch and her mother produced a £50 note, meaning Mr Baber had to get change from a lock-box in the office at the back of the shop.

He said it was not uncommon for tourists to use high denomination notes, but it was only later that he realised it was a fake.

The family looked as if they were going to leave until, at the last moment, the adults started picking up items again and asking questions.

The girl suddenly headed for the door and the adults said “thank you”, dropped everything and all three left the shop very quickly.

Mr Baber said: “It was then that I thought ‘something’s just happened’.

“I went back into the office and noticed the box was open and that the cash had gone.”

Mr Baber said the girl could not have been more than eight years old. “It’s sickening, and it’s quite disarming. You see a family unit and your guard drops. It would never occur to me to expect a young girl to be a risk of that sort.”

He said he was going to upgrade the CCTV technology in his shop and change the locking system on the office door.

Police said it was the latest in a series of thefts committed in the street of unattended items in the last few months.

A spokesman said: “Officers have made arrests in relation to some of these incidents and are currently making extensive enquiries into the other thefts.”

He advised traders to install CCTV and ensure no valuable items were left unattended in areas accessible to the public.

• A 20-year-old man from Manchester and a 48-year-old woman from Swanley are to go on trial in September charged with stealing a mobile phone from a business in Micklegate in an unrelated incident on March 6.

A 42-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of stealing a purse from a handbag in another shop on Micklegate in another unrelated incident on June 7.

He has been released on police bail as inquiries continue.