HAPLESS thieves made off with a giant pillar of doner meat from a kebab shop, but dropped it on their feet on the way out.
In a foolhardy theft captured entirely on CCTV, two criminals can be seen making off with the meat and several sish kebabs after breaking into the shop.
They ignored the till and expensive computer equipment in order to grab the 70lb frozen doner.
The owners of Kebab Mahal on Dalkeith High Street say the footage shows one of the thieves “jumping about in agony.”
Azher ashid, 37, said the theft was like “something out of America’s Dumbest Criminals.”
He said: “I got a phone call from my brother to say he thought we had been broken into because some of the pizza trays were out of place.
“The kebab machine had been moved and shish kebabs had gone missing.
“Initially, that’s all we thought had been taken but when we checked the CCTV, we found they had stolen the doner meat and the chicken.
“They didn’t even stop at the computers or at the till.”
The culprits, who Mr Rashid thinks were drunk were in their mid-20s.
One was wearing a green hoodie and the other a black top.
As well as the frozen doner meat, the thieves made off with samosas, a 10kg container of raw marinated chicken and samosas.
The footage shows them hauling the meat slab out of a window, which one of them had managed to slip through.
Mr Rashid continued: “I wouldn’t have thought anybody would have been able to fit through that window.
“And the doner meat weighs a lot- it takes a couple of us to safely get it out the freezer.
“On the CCTV, you see one of them pushing the meat through the window and the other boy grabbing it, before it disappears.
“Dumb”
“The next thing you see is the guy outside jumping about in agony.
“They were a bit dumb, to be honest, it was like something out of America’s Dumbest Criminals.
“Within a few hours, the doner would have defrosted and they wouldn’t have had anything to cook it with.
“Most likely, they have dumped it.”
The footage then shows the pair walking off, with the uninjured thief hoisting the meat onto his shoulder.
Break-in
A police spokesman said: “Lothian and Borders Police are investigating following a break-in and theft from a takeaway store in Midlothian.
“Approximately £100 worth of foodstuffs were taken during the incident in the early hours of Friday, 15 June.
“Anyone who remembers seeing anything suspicious in or around the shop is asked to contact police immediately.”
