The moment a man tried to snatch a young girl from her mother outside a coffee shop in Taiwan’s capital has been captured on camera.

The man was chased off after passers-by came to the mother’s aid in Taipei after she screamed for help while she wrestled with the man.

A 33-year-old suspect, whose surname was Chou, was arrested soon afterwards and a file lodged with prosecutors, but local residents were angered when officers released him on the grounds he had not been caught in the act of committing a crime, according to Up Media.

Local mothers complained about this risks of letting the suspect out in public and Ting Shou-chung, the opposition Kuomintang party’s candidate in this year’s Taipei mayoral election, said releasing the man was like ‘setting a time bomb in public’.

Chou, who was a lifeguard at a local swimming pool, told the police that he had initially identified the girl as a friend his, but failed to explain why he had continued tugging at her when the girl’s mother fought back. SET news reported.

His employer told Up Media the man had only been working at the pool for a week and he has now left his employment.