A furious pub landlady says she is disgusted after a callous sneak thief stole a Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity box from her bar.

The collection was taken from The Rosse, in Saltaire, when staff were distracted during a quiet evening shift.

Now Kay Hayes, who has run the pub since December, has started a Facebook appeal to help find the culprit.

Already a post about the theft, which happened on Tuesday night, has been shared by more than 3,000 other Facebook users and attracted 96 comments.

“I am absolutely disgusted that someone could stoop so low as to steal from such an important charity.

“It’s outrageous, really despicable. I’ve been in the pub trade for 13 years and never known anything so mean,” said Mrs Hayes.

“It was an unusually quiet night when this quite well-dressed woman came in and distracted the barman saying she was waiting for someone.

“When he left the bar, she put her handbag in front of two charity boxes on the bar, lifted them to see which was heaviest and then used some little scissors to cut a security chain.

“She was looking around all the time,” Mrs Hayes said.

“Then she just slipped the box under her jacket and was off.”

Mrs Hayes said the box would have contained about £50 collected from donations and a weekly game played by regulars using Saturday night’s National Lottery numbers.

“There’s usually about £10 left over after winnings are given out and that goes into the Air Ambulance tin.

“It’s such a good cause and something anyone of us might need sometime.

“I just don’t know how anyone could bring themselves to steal that money,” Mrs Hayes said.

She told police that night and on Wednesday gave details to a police community support officer.

CCTV footage from theft at the Bingley Road pub is now with police.

Anyone with information should call police on 101.