POLICE in the Scottish Borders are hunting an opportunist thief who stole a bag of boys’ rugby shorts from a dry cleaners shop in Galashiels.

Shortly before 3pm on Friday March 24, Buccleuch Cleaners owner Stuart Hogg discovered the bag was missing.

A check of CCTV quickly showed a man, who had earlier been in the premises in Gala Park ‘enquiring about items’, snatching the bag as he was leaving the shop.

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A video and photo was posted on the shop’s social media pages with an appeal and within a short period of time the post had been shared over 200 times.

This subsequently led to the recovery of the bag which had been dumped in a wheelie bin in the town.

Stuart said: “The power of facebook. My big concern was that because it happened on a Friday there wouldn’t have been enough time to replace the shorts ahead of the game on Saturday.

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“I knew they would have been dumped because it’s not something that could be sold but I was worried in case they had been picked up by a bin lorry.

“But the main thing is we got them back.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We were made aware around 2.55pm on Friday, March 24 of a bag of rugby strips which had been stolen from premises on Gala Park in Galashiels.

“Enquiries are ongoing.”

The shop posted: “Thank you to everyone who helped share and give information regarding the incident which led to Stuart tracking down and recovering the stolen bag.”