Six teenagers who filmed a mock abduction as an internet prank have been criticised after sparking a police investigation.
A 19-year-old girl told officers she had seen two teenage boys attacking two young boys in Wallisdown Road, Poole, Dorset, at around 10.30pm on Sunday.
The girl, from West Moors, saw one of the boys, who she thought was around 11 years old, being bundled into the boot of a yellow Renault Megane.
The teenagers, wearing hooded tops, then drove off while the second boy "hobbled" away, police said.
Poole CID officers launched an investigation and appealed for witnesses.
Four of the six men involved - all in their late teens and from Bournemouth and Poole - went to Poole police station on Tuesday night to confess the mock abduction had been filmed for the social networking site Bebo.
Detectives spoke to the fifth teenager on the phone and the sixth man took the mobile phone footage to Poole police station on Wednesday where it was deleted.
Detective Sergeant Joe Williams, of Poole CID, said: "They admitted that the whole thing was a prank which they had videoed on a mobile phone for publishing on the internet.
"We have also spoken to the car driver, a man in his late teens from Poole. The mobile phone footage of the prank was very realistic."
Dorset Police warned others not to fool around in a way likely to cause public alarm and prompt a major police hunt.
