RTE journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes has told how he was "completely suckered" by a prank in which his production team staged a mugging.
The Crimecall crew were filming in Dublin's Docklands when Boucher-Hayes noticed a man run off with a woman's hand bag, and decided to give chase.
The scene was of course caught on video, and shows the reporter acting quickly, pursuing the suspect and telling him, "Sunshine, put it down."
Reports on the 2fm 11am bulletin are the product of @TaraghLG fevered imagination. This is what actually happened pic.twitter.com/3VvjUJFG1R
— Philip Boucher-Hayes (@boucherhayes) February 24, 2015
Speaking to Ryan Tubridy on 2fm this morning, he said he was curious that neither of the Gardaí on hand for the shoot intervened, and that he only realised he'd been had when someone pulled out a walkie talkie where the 'robber' was stopped.
The Crimecall team had intended to use him as a witness to crime so they could test the Gardaí's new Evofit facial recognition software, but hadn't counted on such chivalry:
“What they hadn’t planned on was howiya here chasing off after him.”
Just been completely suckered. #Crimecall production team staged a robbery (unknown to me) to see how I would react.
— Philip Boucher-Hayes (@boucherhayes) February 17, 2015
