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A British tourist is waiting anxiously to find out if a thief who stole his iPhone will follow through with blackmail threats to post compromising images of his teenage girlfriend on the internet.

The thief has demanded Ryan Hall, 21, pay £1,600 to stop photographs of his beautician girlfriend Charlotte Keeney, 18, from being posted online.

Hall's £500 iPhone was was stolen while he and Keeney were waiting for a bus at the end of a holiday in Tunisia.

The thief grabbed the phone the moment Ryan placed it on a table and ran off before the couple were able to react. 

Blackmailed: Ryan Hall(right) had his iPhone stolen on holiday in Tunisia and has been blackmailed with threats that compromising images of his girlfriend Charlotte Keeney (left) will be posted on the internet

Dream holiday: The Hotel Sentido Phenicia in Hammamet, Tunisia, where the young couple stayed

The criminal then contacted Ryan through his mother, whose number he found after scrolling through the phone's address book.

Hall and Keeney, from Sittingborne in Kent, have called the criminal's bluff and got the local police involved.

After they refused to pay, Hall said the blackmailer flooded his mother and Charlotte's phones with messages.

One text conversation ended with this ominous message: 'OK, tomorrow it's big surprise for you. Bye bye.'

Now the young couple face an agonising time to see if their most personal images are used against them.

It is a 'terrible situation', said student Ryan.

The couple are the victims of an increasingly common form of 'sextortion' or 'sexual cyber crime' in which foreign thieves trawl stolen phones - most commonly iPhones - for pictures or videos that they can use against the owner.

'It is unbelievable,' said student Ryan.

'It was bad enough someone had nicked my phone while I was on holiday but to then threaten and blackmail is just the lowest of the low.

'He's says he's going to publish the pictures and video on sites like Facebook. The threats have really scared us both.'

The couple were waiting for a bus to the airport after after a week's holiday at the Sentido Phenicia Hotel in Hammamet, Tunisia, before the theft. 

Idyllic: An aerial view of Hammamet, Tunisia, where the couple had spent a week on holiday

Compromising: The thief found images of Keeney on Hall's iPhone 

'Ransom texts' of this natures are occurring more and more of late across southern Europe and north Africa, say crime experts, with tourists especially at risk of blackmail.

Digital Trust director Harry Fletcher said: 'We have heard of many occasions of criminals abroad stealing phones or computers to get confidential information, videos and photos.

'Their very sinister reason is that they know a significant proportion of phones will contain intimate pictures or videos. It is a growing and worrying trend.'

Fletcher said Ryan did the right thing by calling the police.

'They will be stealing seven or eight phones a day hoping someone will pay them. If you say no', they will move on to the next victim,' Fletcher said.

A spokesman for Thomas Cook, who Hall and Keeney booked their holiday through, said: 'Our team in the resort did their utmost to assist Mr Hall at the time, and we are cooperating fully with the local authorities as their investigation into the incident continues.'