A police officer in the UK reported his own son for fraud after the 13-year-old ran up charges of more than $5,600 (£3,700) playing games on an iPad purchased from the Apple app store.

The cop, Doug Crossan, 48, first learned of the charges from his credit card company, according to the Daily Mail. The teenager, who could be arrested for the charges, had no clue he would be charged for the in-game purchases.

Crossan approached Apple for a refund but the company refused, so Crossan reported his son, Cameron, to the Action Fraud helpline as a step toward recouping his money.

"I am sure Cameron had no intention to do it, but I had to have a crime reference number if there was any chance of getting any credit card payments refunded," Crossan said.

The main objective isn't to punish his son as much as it is to go after Apple.

"I could make it difficult of course and refuse to bring him in and they would have to come and arrest him," Cross said. "Really I just want to embarrass Apple as much as possible. Morally, I just don't understand where Apple gets off charging for a child's game."

Cameron has had an iPad since December to use for school work. Crossan said he input his MBNA Virgin credit card with Apple when using the device to download a music album, but Cameron then racked up more than 300 purchases on games such as Plants vs Zombies, Hungry Shark, Gun Builder and Nova 3.

Most games are free to download but users can buy in-game extras. When his father confronted him, Cameron quickly confessed, claiming he did not know he was incurring charges as the games were initially free.

"He innocently thought that, because it was advertised as a free game, the clicks would not cost anything," Crossan said.