A doorbell camera captured a hooded woman allegedly taking a family's dog from their Colchester home in what police are treating as a suspected burglary, while the owner watched the incident unfold remotely via phone notifications from a beach in Cornwall. Christopher De Freitas, 44, said he began receiving Ring alerts while on holiday with his children and realised someone was removing his seven-year-old dog, Zidane, from the property, leaving him in "utter shock" as he tried to call the police.

De Freitas said the woman knocked at the house four times over about half an hour before returning roughly 40 minutes later to leave with Zidane, a Beauceron-Poodle cross known as a Beauceroodle. He said a neighbour's gate had been damaged, his double-glazed doors forced open, and a lead and dog food also taken. Zidane vanished on 18 August and remains missing despite widespread social media appeals; Essex Police arrested a 49-year-old woman on suspicion of burglary on 24 August, and she has been released on bail until 2 October. De Freitas said his two children have been left distraught by the loss of their pet.