An unidentified man in the Zeeland village of Zuidzande has given a toddler a teddy bear containing a camera and a microphone, local broadcaster Omroep Zeeland reports.

The man told the parents of the two-year-old who were visiting a jumble sale he thought the child was very sweet and that he wanted it to have a teddy for free. The parents later noticed something hard in the toy and discovered a small camera and microphone.

They informed the police who examined the toy and found there were no batteries in the device and no images had been taken.

‘No offence has been committed,’ police spokeswoman Mireille Aalders told the broadcaster. A likely scenario, she said, is that the device is a nanny cam and that the man didn’t know it was there. ‘He may just have wanted to do something nice,’ said Aalders who called on the man to check in with police to clarify the case.