Terrified youngesters have been swamping a UK Childline with calls following the "killer clown" craze that has swept Australia and the rest of the world .
In just one week the charity was contacted 120 times by children scared by people dressed up in frightening clown costumes to scare passers-by.
The bizarre fad has left police up and down the country dealing with a wave of incidents, with forces warning that jokers or criminals using the costumes to deliberately scare people will face arrest.
A quarter of the calls to Childline about clowns came from children under 11, while more than a third came from terrified youngsters between 12 and 15.
Most calls came from young people in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham, the charity said.
The US- born craze has seen cases of clowns chasing children with weapons such as knives or baseball bats, in some instances specifically targeting schools.
A 10-year-old-boy in Plymouth was threatened by a clown who jumped out of a bush carrying a hammer, while in Workington, Cumbria, a clown brandishing an axe chased an 11-year-old girl.
Children have also been targeted online, with a case in which a 13-year-old boy was arrested and bailed for malicious communications after a girl the same age in Kendal received Instagram messages from someone posing as a clown threatening to cut her throat and rape her.
With Hallowe'en looming, John Cameron, head of Childline, urged people dressing up to act responsibly.
"There is a worrying trend at the moment with some individuals, be they older children or adults, deliberately seeking to dress up in a way not to entertain but to behave in a very scary and threatening way," he told the Press Association
"That's a conscious behaviour and should not be tolerated. Sometimes people don't understand the impact that can have."
The craze is also causing consternation within the traditional clowning industry, with one clown production company cancelling an event at a children's hospital over fears they may be confused with their more sinister counterparts.
