“LOOK, he’s texting. I’m going to go now.”

With that, prankster Joey Salads casually walked into a children’s playground and offered lollies and chocolate to a five-year-old boy called Josh, while he was playing on a slide at a public park in New Jersey.

Josh’s dad was on parenting duty, but instead of actively supervising, he chose to sit on a nearby park bench and play with his phone.

The youngster was the only child on the playground, but his father had tuned out so much he didn’t notice the stranger talking to his son.

“Want candy? Let’s go. Want some more candy? Yeah? Come with me, we’ll go and get more,” Joey said, as the trusting child took his hand.

Abducting a child is a criminal act — but in this instance, the whole thing was a social experiment set up by the boy’s mother Emily.

“I did other videos similar to this in the past. The mother reached out to me on Facebook talking about her situation,” Joey told news.com.au.

She worried her husband her husband spent too much time on his phone, and didn’t pay enough attention to Josh while they were out in public.

“What do you think will happen when we go?” Joey asked her in an interview before he attempted the brazen stunt.

“I think it’s possible if you call him over he’s going to come,” she replied.

“His father’s not going to be paying attention, so you definitely have a chance of scooping him up.”

Her worst fears were confirmed when Joey calmly led the boy from the playground, right under his father’s nose.

“Oh my God,” she said with her hand to her face as she watched from a distance.

It’s not clear how much time passed before the dad noticed something was up.

He got to his feet and called his son’s name, but the child was nowhere to be found.

“What the f*** is wrong with you? You’re not paying attention, sitting there one your phone not paying attention,” she yelled, storming into the playground as the dad looked around helplessly.

“I don’t know where the f*** he is. Where is he?” the father replied, holding his arms out while he paced fretfully.

“That’s ‘cause you’re not paying attention to him,” Emily accused.

“We’ve set you up because I knew you don’t pay attention when you have your son.”

“Oh please,” the father replied angrily, before Joey walked into the shot with Josh.

“We’ve set you up, well I saw you texting so I abducted him with some candy,” the prankster explained.

“Thank God, come here boy,” the relieved father said, taking his giggling son into his arms and kissing him on the cheek.

“You know to keep an eye on him, because it was just like that,” Joey told the father, snapping his fingers.

Joey said he created it because he wanted to warn how terrifyingly easy it is to abduct a child in public if the parents aren’t paying attention.

“It could possibly save a life.”