Endeavour, Whitby: Pub owner pleads for witnesses to contact police about stolen life-size mummy prop on Halloween

North Yorkshire Police has released a CCTV appeal after a mummy prop was stolen from a pub in Whitby around the time of Whitby Goth Weekend.

Police are looking for two people who are linked with the theft of a life-size mummy from The Endeavour pub on October 31, 2023.

CCTV footage revealed a man and a woman entered the pub on Church Street at around 10pm, the man picked up the decorative model and hid it under his table, before walking out with it.

The woman stayed behind and spoke to the pub owner, Maria Limbert, and a member of staff, who asked her to retrieve the mummy prop. The woman tried calling the man a few times but there was no response and the woman left.

The man is described as white, thin, with short blonde hair, aged 20 to 25 and wearing a black tuxedo. The woman, of a similar age, had long black hair and was wearing black clothes.

“The town makes a huge effort decorating venues inside and outside, we had really big props, so we’ve got a huge skull and these two rubber life-size mummies that sit around with the customers,” Ms Limbert said.

“It got to Halloween night, which was on a Tuesday, funnily enough Halloween isn’t the biggest event. It's the goth festival that’s the bigger event [for us] but there was a couple in the pub.

“When I looked back at the CCTV after the event they had put one of the mummies under the table; they normally sit on the chairs, they get moved around, people take photos with them. It’s just a bit of fun.

“We’ve had them for about five years, we bought them from another couple that were retiring. So they’ve been a big part of our pub fixture and fittings for quite some time. The chap put it under the table, so they clearly intended to try and take it.

“One of the staff walked to the back of the pub to start clearing things away, then he just walked out of the door with it.”

She is now appealing for witnesses to get in touch with the police to retrieve the mummy prop.

“He was with another lady, they’d had a bit to drink obviously, they’d been out all night, she stayed in the pub and my member of staff said that they need to bring it back,” Ms Limbert said.

“In fairness to her, she did ring him several times but he didn’t answer and wouldn’t bring it back. Might be a bit of fun to you but somebody’s worked hard to buy those to make the venue nice for the goth festival. It’s not appropriate.

“We had a couple of anonymous tip offs on social media but then people don’t want to get involved when the police want to speak to them. It sounds trivial with everything that’s going on in the world but at the end of the day it’s wrong isn’t it?

“It’s just so frustrating when people work so hard to make places so nice, Whitby is the most wonderful place, everybody makes these events brilliant and then as usual it’s one that spoils it for the majority.

“If anyone knows who they are, do the right thing and let the police know.”