A new Playmobil set depicting an armed robbery at a bank has been slammed as 'horrendous' by anti-violence campaigners.
The 'City Action' pack is aimed at four to 10-year-olds and contains a masked blonde robber with a toy gun, a bank manager in a suit, gold bars, notes and a cash machine.
Pictures accompanying the set show the raider holding a gun up to the bank boss as he hands over loot. Another shows the blonde woman emptying a cash machine of tiny toy notes.
A description on The Early Learning Centre website, which sells the toy for £34.99, says: "Watch out. The bank robber is after the money and is demanding the key to the safe - what will the bank manager do?"
As a dad of sons, aged eight and five, I know they would love the £35 set. I see it as no more pernicious than the Lego police station I bought them for Christmas, which my boys love playing with to lock up the baddies.
But anti-gun and knife campaigners say it is sending out the wrong message.
Danny Bryan, spokesman for Communities Against Gun and Knife Crime, told The Mirror: "It is horrendous that young people are given all these images to shape them. It is sending out the wrong message."
However, the German toy manufacturer behind the set claims it encourages kids to 'imagine, invent, create'.
And one dad commented: "The only robbery here is the price!"