A woman has told how she stepped in when she saw a desperate young mum caught shoplifting nappies and baby milk.
Entrepreneur Sophie Marie Bennett spotted the mum being quizzed for shoplifting the vital supplies at a Tesco store.
Sophie did not hesitate to get involved and paid for the items, earning the mum's gratitude and tears in return.
Sophie, who runs Black Owned Birmingham, tweeted: "Just saw a woman getting caught stealing pampers and baby milk in Tesco.
"I paid for it. If you’re having to steal baby milk and Tesco brand pampers at 8.15am, you defo had a hard night.
"She cried, and just said thank you over and over again."
The tweet has since garnered 425,000 likes on Twitter and has been retweeted around the world, Birmingham Live reports.
While it received lots of hugely positive responses and praise, some tweeted condemnation of the initial act, and criticised the intervention - to the point Sophie had to mute the conversation.
But not before people could share their own stories, including several urging retail and security staff to "look the other way" if desperate people were shoplifting essentials.
Jules said: "As an ex-retail worker, seeing mums stealing to help their families was so sad, and mothers tipping purses out to find pennies to cover milk and cereals and putting back the bananas broke my heart.
"Thank goodness for kind people."
Another tweeted: "May the blessing return to you tenfold. That's a wonderful thing to do for someone."
Adam posted: "You did the right thing. To everyone else, especially employees of big stores: if you see someone shoplifting formula and nappies, no you didn’t."
Birgit added: "Well done, Sophie. I think we all will see a lot more of this. If possible, we should all show our compassionate side."
Sophie is currently helping to fund a "spring fling" holiday club for young people aged eight to 16 next week with the Youth of the Community charity in Birmingham and Sandwell.
Last summer, she set up a charity appeal to ensure every Birmingham child's first day at school is a good one by making sure they all had backpacks, pens and water bottles.
She said she had seen so many parents struggling as a result of the pandemic that she felt she wanted to do her bit to help.
For some families, she said, money had to be spent on uniforms and food during the holidays and there was just not enough left to buy stationery, backpacks and water bottles.
Sophie put out a message on her Black Owned Birmingham Facebook page, thinking she would fund around 20 backpacks herself - but she was inundated with requests.
She put together a GoFundMe to support marginalised children around the city.
