A British anti-vaxxer has admitted he was "naive" for accepting money to stop criticising AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine in a "skillful" Youtube prank.
Piers Corbyn, who has been an outspoken critic of COVID lockdown measures, was pranked by Youtubers Josh Pieters and Archie Manners.
The duo met with Corbyn in central London where they posed as AstraZeneca shareholders and offered him a donation of £10,000 to stop criticising the company and start taking aim at the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.
Corbyn was seen taking the money, which had been swapped partway for Monopoly money, in the video which was shared online.
"'Yesterday @archiemanners and I convinced anti-vaxxer Piers Corbyn to take £10,000 he thought came from AstraZeneca to stop criticising their vaccine. Except it was monopoly money and we recorded the whole thing," Pieters said on social media.
In a video posted to Twitter, Corbyn revealed his surprise at realising he had been pranked.
"When I got home - a pack of monopoly money. Which, I have to say I burst out laughing because they had done it so well. It was so skillful."
When asked if it was a bit naive to have taken the money, he agreed.
"In public of course people often give cash but not large amounts... This was a large amount but they said they had lots of money and they wanted to help and wanted to be anonymous.
"So I took it perhaps naively thinking it would all be safe."
However, he disagreed with the final edit of the prank, posted online by the Youtubers. Corbyn said they had taken "clips of conversation to make it look like something" else.
He reiterated the comments in a statement to the MailOnline.
"The video has been very heavily edited with dishonest commentary and leaves out my repeated statements that anything we accept has to be unconditional.
"It is false that I agreed [to] any change in policy whatsoever and I stated to these imposters that all Covid vaccines are dangerous and we weren't changing any of our views against vaccines and vaccine passporting."
He said he hadn't agreed to "limiting or changing" what he has been saying, and will continue to say, about COVID-19 vaccines.
