People have been left horrified after a mum revealed she'd discovered a sharp blade inside one of her children's trick-or-treat Fruit-tella sweets.
In recent years, the amount of houses with a lit pumpkin sat outside, welcoming in small children running round in sheets as ghouls or brandishing a pirate's sword, have certainly dwindled.
Year after year, caution is growing, with more people wary and more safety-conscious of who could be hiding underneath a mask, or doling tricks or treats out to their children.
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It's a sad sight to see, with many kids now having to trek far and wide to retrieve their sought-after candy.
Well, one mother certainly got a scary trick played on her this Halloween after finding a sharp pencil sharpener blade lodged in one of her children's Fruit-tella sweets.
Lindsey Dickinson, who lives on Daubney Street in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, explained to Grimsby Live how her two children went out in the local area knocking on doors for 'a good hour-and-a-half' before attending a party at a nearby church.
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They covered the areas of 'Elliston Street and went up and down the streets between Grimsby Road and Brereton Avenue,' according to the mum.
"When we got home, at about 7:00 pm, they were all excited and were telling me how much they got and about all the things they'd seen and how much fun they'd had.
"They were spreading all the sweets out on the table saying, 'Look at this one', and Charlie said, 'Can I have a sweet now, mum?' and I said that of course he could, it's Halloween," she recalled.
Lindsey's son, 14-year-old Charlie, had just been about to open up the sweet and take a bite, when the mum quickly grabbed the 'strange-looking' candy from him, having spotted a 'green line' on it.
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The mum soon realised just how fortunate it was she checked the sweet, peeling the wrapper back to reveal a blade from a pencil sharpener.
Lindsey questioned how someone could 'do this', saying: "It's a night for children to have fun, and the fact that someone could do this to intentionally harm somebody is disgusting.
"The fact that a piece of metal has been inserted into a sweet is just shocking. I have no idea where it came from because they covered quite a lot of ground.
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"It's scary because any young child wouldn't think twice about popping that sweet into their mouth."
Lindsey quickly took to social media in outrage and panic after she made the discovery, hoping to alert other families in the area.
Her post has been shared over 1,000 times and has received floods of comments from outraged parents.
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One Facebook user said: "That is possibly one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. What is wrong with these people."
"Wtf?! There are some evil, evil b******s about! Hopefully someone remembers which house it was," another wrote.
While a third commented: "Absolutely sickening. I really hope no child has bitten into a sweet like this, breaks my heart. We covered this area so I'm checking my little ones sweets before they eat anymore. We'll be staying in next year."
In the comments of the post, Lindsey claims she contacted the police but they 'didn't give [her] a log number' and 'dismissed it saying it was not a police matter and that [she] should contact Fruit-tella'.
A spokesperson for Humberside Police told LADbible: "Finding a blade in a food item is understandably concerning, and for a parent with children, an incredibly distressing experience.
"From the report we received and information supplied, it was reported the sweet looked normal, had not been opened and appeared intact, which would potentially suggest an issue at manufacture.
"The manufacturer of the sweet, The Food Standards Agency and Trading Standards are the organisations who would need to investigate the incident further at this stage to determine the circumstances."
Topics: Parenting, Halloween, Food And Drink, UK News
Poppy Bilderbeck