"I woke up to messages from like 50 people saying 'have you seen this?'"
A dad has cleared his name after being captured on CCTV outside a house whilst out walking with his daughter on Sunday night.
Joey Lennon, who stopped to look at a property in St Helens on Sunday night, was shocked to find that images of him had been posted online and he had been shamed on social media.
The original post, which has now been deleted, warned nearby residents to "keep their eyes peeled" for Lennon, who was said to be "looking into houses." The author of the post also mentioned that the incident had been reported to police.
The father, from St Helens in Merseyside, was captured on CCTV stopping to gaze up at a house.
Lennon told the Liverpool Echo: "It was around 8pm and we were just going on a little walk and my daughter spotted an old alarm box on this house.
"My daughter said 'there’s birds up there' and I was trying to see the birds nest. Walking away I thought 'there's no birds in there' and later she told me she was winding me up.
"I went to bed early because I'm a web designer and it doesn't do me any good staying up. In the morning I woke up to messages from like 50 people saying ‘have you seen this?’ I spat my coffee out.
"I was shocked. I've never done anything bad and anyone who knows me knows it’s not something I'd do."
Lennon wanted to clear his name on social media after images of him and his daughter outside the house surfaced online.
On Facebook, he said: "Just gonna put this out there. A lot of people have messaged me over this and were quite shocked someone would post this to be honest.
"I'm not a thief (neither is my little girl). You're quite safe lol.
"My little girl told me she saw a nest in an old alarm box on a house as we were walking home. I don't know why I fell for it, but I did and so I looked - you got my good side so thank you. (She got me good this time, the little wind up haha)."
He added: "Never in my life has anything like that happened to me before, that’s why people were messaging me. I was just walking down that road thinking there's no birds in that nest.
"A lot of people found it funny, especially when you know I'm not that type of person. They were as shocked as I was."
