A robotic puppet reindeer at a shopping centre began singing an obscene Christmas tune to shocked customers after it was tampered with.

A young mum, who was with her friend and their daughters aged four and six, said she watched in horror as the animatronic deer at the Lowry Outlet at Salford Quays began singing 'Frosty The Pervert' on Tuesday evening.

Managers at the shopping centre said the reindeer, which is in a log cabin on the first floor, was meddled with to sing 'inappropriate songs'.

An unknown number of intruders managed to get into the control room and change the music, which was playing on a laptop, they said.

They said they have apologised to the customers.

Kate Smyth, 27, visited the attraction with her friend Rachel Jones, 31, and their daughters Meadow, six, and Hope, four, from Stretford at about 6.30pm.

She said: "We had taken our kids to the cinema. We went past and saw the reindeer. It was singing Frosty the Snowman.

"Then it went a bit funny.

"I said to my friend 'I swear it said Frosty The Pervert'.Then I thought I heard it say d***. I thought 'that's a bit inappropriate'.

"The song is about Frosty the Snowman going into a playground and exposing himself in front of children. At this point a man walked in. I thought 'does he work there?'

"He said 'sorry, there were kids in there'.

"I spoke to the customer service manager. He said 'I'm so sorry about that'. It shocked me. My daughter was in there. It's not great. It's not something that should happen."

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Her pal Rachel said: "It's just a bit shocking. Hope has got to that age where she's more aware of Christmas. At first I thought I must have heard it wrong. I was just a bit disappointed. It wasn't really appropriate."

A full investigation has been launched, a spokeswoman for the Lowry Outlet said.

She said: "Somebody managed to get back of house and meddled with it. They put inappropriate music on. It was controlled by a laptop. We switched it off as soon as we were aware of it. We have secured the unit. This isn't going to happen again. It's being handled by our customer service manager."

The spokeswoman said they are unsure who was responsible and are investigating whether the door to the control room was left open.

When the M.E.N visited the reindeer on Wednesday, it was fully functioning, making automated announcements about the Christmas events on offer at the shopping centre.

The spokeswoman said that other than the glitch, they have had fantastic feedback about the Christmas attraction.