Victims of a dog-napping have paid a £1,000 ransom in a late night car park handover to get their beloved pet back.

Amy Francis and Mike Cooper with Charlie Charlie, a Chihuahua, was stolen from the back seat of a car parked at Tesco's at the Oxford Retail Park, Cowley, on May 17.

Owner Amy Francis, 21, of Cowley, put up hundreds of posters offering a £750 reward for the return of her dog.

But on May 23, after the reward was increased to £1,000, a mystery caller rang her home demanding the money as ransom for the release of her precious pet.

Ms Francis, her boyfriend and a flatmate met the dognappers in a car park at 10pm and made the switch.

Now reunited, the student says she was happy to part with the cash to get her pet home.

She said: "On Monday evening we put the reward up as we were getting desperate. Less than two hours later the phone rang and someone said they had Charlie and we had to meet them in 15 minutes with £1,000.

"We met some people in a car park and they showed us the dog. It was quite frightening but we were so desperate by this point we would've done anything, and handed over the cash.

"We were worried they'd run off with the cash without us getting Charlie but it was worth the risk."

Nine-month-old Charlie was bought as a puppy for £750 and came with pedigree certificates. She would have fetched hundreds of pounds on the black market or could have been smuggled abroad.

The dog thieves were described as two men in a white van but Ms Francis, a Art History and English student at Oxford Brookes University, refused to reveal the name of the car park.

She said: "Charlie seems fine now, although she was little bit dehydrated. They didn't do anything bad to her, she seems well fed.

"I might feel angry in a few weeks, but at the moment I am relieved. I was going to go on holiday this year but now we've paid this money we can't. But it was worth it."

She would not be involving the police now the dog had been returned.

Anyone with information on who stole Charlie should call police on 08458 505505.

Oxford police spokesman Victoria Bartlett said they began investigating the theft on May 17 but did not know Ms Francis had paid a ransom. She added that there had been only one one dog had been reported stolen in Oxford since January.