This is the shocking moment a brazen thief tried to steal a British man’s mobile phone in Barcelona while he filmed his romantic proposal to his girlfriend.
Charlie Bullock, 30, had taken his partner of one and a half years to the Catalan capital to ask her to marry him on Sunday when his plans fell through.
Hannah McNaghten was caught off guard when Charlie got down on one knee, but her special moment was ruined by a criminal who tried to snatch the phone that was recording it.
When Hannah screamed, quick-thinking Charlie sprang into action and, in a fit of courage, confronted the thief, who “immediately” returned the phone to him.
“It ruined the moment a bit,” Charlie, from Newbury, Berkshire, later admitted.
“I just wanted to propose to my girlfriend and a lovely guy wanted to steal my phone.
Charlie had set his phone to capture the special moment in front of the Arc de Triomphe.
The two pause to hug each other, leaving the phone unattended, as the audience watches.
The camera captured the moment an opportunistic thief grabbed the phone
Telecommunications engineer Charlie had taken Hannah to the popular tourist spot over the weekend with plans to propose.
The Arc de Triomphe, installed for the 1888 Barcelona World’s Fair, still attracts a large number of tourists and street vendors, but it also has its fair share of opportunistic thieves.
Charlie had leaned his phone against the wall for a moment as the two posed for a photo, with Hannah completely unaware of what was to come.
In footage shared since then, Hannah is seen heading towards the phone before Charlie gets down on one knee.
He takes a ring out of his pocket and captures the special moment on camera.
But as the couple embraced, a clever thief saw the moment and grabbed the unattended device.
The video cuts when the criminal, seen in a black coat, walks by and picks it up.
Charlie told him. I need to know: ‘It ruined the moment a bit. Thanks Hannah for keeping an eye out for phone thieves.
“I just wanted to propose to my girlfriend and a lovely guy wanted to steal my phone.
‘He immediately returned it to her. I didn’t realize it, my partner did, I only knew because she yelled at him and when she turned around he returned the phone to her.
Friends were shocked but happy for the couple.
Fada said: “Leaving the phone unattended in Barcelona was audacious.”
Josh added: “This is the problem of modern times: people think they can leave their phones here because they ‘shouldn’t’ be stolen.”
Hannah didn’t realize what was happening and thought they were just going to take a photo.
Telecommunications engineer Charlie had taken Hannah to the popular tourist spot over the weekend with plans to propose.
The video cuts when the criminal, seen in a black coat, walks by and picks it up.
The Arc de Triomphe, installed for the 1888 Barcelona World’s Fair, still attracts numerous tourists and street vendors, but it also has its fair share of opportunistic thieves.
The couple did not report the crime to police because they were lucky to recover it, they said.
Barcelona is known for the prevalence of opportunistic petty thieves.
According to official data shared this year, pickpockets accounted for 48.1 percent of all recorded crimes committed in Barcelona.
This was 22 per cent less than 2019 figures, but remained high, with 100,944 incidents during the year.
Scams are also up 35 percent compared to 2022 figures, but mainly online.