In footage that will shock and horrify parents everywhere, a video of a social experiment released on YouTube has shown how easily it is for a complete stranger to walk off with young children.

The YouTube user known as JoeySalads went to a playground and first asked for parental permission to speak to children playing there.

In the three instances shown in the video, the parents said it was fine for Joey to approach their children believing that there was no way they would walk off with him – but they couldn’t have been more wrong.

The man conducting the social experiment, JoeySalads, speak to a mother beforehand to get her permission to speak to her child. The mother believes there is no way her daughter will leave with him

Joey uses a puppy to get gain the little girl's attention and make friends

In just a matter of minutes the little girls is leaving the playground with him to 'see the other puppies'

All the mother can do is look on in horror as her daughter walks off with the strange man

With the help of a puppy that Joey had with him on a lead, he approaches the children and each time they willingly walk off with this stranger no matter that all their mothers said they warned them daily not to do it.

The first little girl sits down and cuddles the puppy while Joey speaks to her.

‘Can you guess what his name is?’ Joey asks. ‘Is it Duncan?’ she replies. ‘No, it’s doughnuts,’ Joey answers.

Having easily broken the ice with the little girl, Joey asks: ‘Do you want to come back and see the other puppies?’ After she says she does, she happily walks off hand-in-hand with Joey as her mother watches on aghast.

On the second occasion, before approaching a little boy, his mother says to Joey that she tells her son every day not to speak to strangers and that he won’t leave the playground. But this isn’t what happens.

Using the puppy as a foil he makes friends with the child immediately and within minutes he is holding the child by the hand and walking out of the playground with her as his mother gasps in shock.

After going down a slide a little boy comes face to face with the man and his puppy

In no time at all the little boy has agreed to go back to see the other puppies

The same scenario is played out for a third time despite the young boy’s mother also being sure that there’s no way her son will leave the playground without her.

But, as in the two previous examples, the man instantly makes friends with the little boy, who then leaves with him to ‘see the other puppies’.

‘Just because you see somebody with a dog doesn’t mean that you go off with them,’ the mother says to her son afterwards. ‘You don’t know him, you have to ask me.’

Afterwards a shocked mother tells her son that he is not allowed to talk to strangers

JoeySalads ends the video by asking viewers: 'Are your kids safe?'

Worryingly, what this proves however, is that no matter what mothers tell their young children they can still easily be lead astray by cunning and manipulative strangers.

Joey confirms this at the end of the video by claiming that over 700 children are abducted a day and over a quarter of a million a year.