THE coronavirus outbreak has seen bottles of hand sanitiser stolen from a children’s soft play centre, as panicking shoppers strip shelves clean.

The culprit was captured on CCTV taking the sanitiser from Whirlikidz in Chepstow, and one bottle was later left outside the main door after the School Hill-based centre launched an appeal for the return of the cleanser before they went to the police.

Revealing the theft last week, the centre posted: “We are really upset and surprised at Whirlikidz today.

“We are doing our best to maintain hygiene standards and provide our customers with hand sanitiser, around the building, as we have done since we opened 12 years ago.

“Today somebody has taken several bottles from our premises, including the baby change and reception area.

“At the moment it is in great demand and not easy to get hold of. Please think of others and not just yourselves.

“We do have clear CCTV footage of the item being taken and we would urge the culprit to return the items before we hand the footage over to the relevant authorities.”

They later confirmed that one bottle had been returned, saying: “We are grateful that the person has today anonymously returned (left outside our main doors) one of the hand sanitisers.

“Thank you to everyone who commented and shared our post.”

Comments on the play centre’s Facebook page were scathing about the person responsible, one woman calling it “absolutely disgusting behaviour”.

“I’m actually shocked someone can be that selfish and not care about others,” she added.

Another post said: “I’ve been saying for weeks its not the virus we need to fear generally - it’s the general public.”

A woman wrote: “How dreadful. How can some idiot stoop so low as to put other people’s children at risk. Lowest of the low.”

Others called it “awful”, “unbelievable”, “terrible”, “shocking” and “appalling”.

Across the UK, shop aisles have been stripped bare of pasta, sanitiser, soap and loo rolls as panicking shoppers prepare for possible isolation as a result of the coronavirus.

Some stores have placed restrictions on how many in-demand items people can buy.