Waterlooville mum pops clown's balloon with her earring in Poundland after he made children cry

Mum Louise Pinhorne was shopping in the town on Tuesday when she and a friend heard screaming and shop alarms going off.

The 44-year-old from Waterlooville told The News: ‘We were by the EE shop and heard a girl scream. We turned around and a clown came out of the shop.

‘The girl was really scared and upset. I told him that it was a horrible thing to do to scare people and he was going around the street doing it to people. There were some children crying because they were scared but he wouldn’t take his mask off to show them he wasn’t real.

‘He just showed no remorse.’

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The determined mother-of-one followed the clown, dressed in a Pennywise costume from film IT, into Poundland.

She said: ‘I took my earring off and popped the balloon.

‘I know it is near Halloween but I said to him it is not right to scare people trying to earn a living.

‘My son is autistic and if he had been with me I know he would have gone ballistic and got really upset.’

A photo of the clown was posted on Facebook by The Pink Party Shop after the man went in to the shop to purchase the red balloon.

A spokeswoman for The Pink Party Shop in Waterlooville said: ‘The man called us up and asked if we sold red balloons. He then came in to the shop and bought a red balloon. He said he was doing something for charity and we thought he looked great in his costume so we took a photo and put it on social media.

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‘We didn’t realise at all what he was going to do and it was nothing to do with us. We do dress up in the shop because that is our business but we would never scare people in the street.’

It comes after a trend of ‘killer clowns’ that started a few years ago.

Last month a schoolboy on his bike was chased down a horse track by a person in a clown costume near Selsmore Road on Hayling Island.

Back in 2014, the city was swept up in the mystery of a clown who lurked around in Portsmouth and scared people in shops.

Do you know who the clown is? Have you seen him? Do you have a picture of the clown? Please call the newsdesk on 023 9262 2130 and email your pictures to [email protected]

Video credit to Niamh Caswell.