Met 'Super Recognisers' Score Another Success
Catching 'prolific' thief who stole from from shops in areas including Fulham
The Met Police's Super Recognisers' Unit has scored a second success within weeks, with a "prolific" criminal being
jailed after being linked to 39 thefts in areas including Fulham.
Michael Prabucki, 31, of no fixed address was sentenced on Thursday, June 9 to four years' imprisonment at Blackfriars Crown Court.
Prabucki was identified by Detective Sergeant James Rabbett and was arrested and charged with multiple thefts across Londonon April 7.
Polish national, Prabucki, pleaded guilty to all 39 counts of theft after DS Rabbett had presented an overwhelming amount of photographic evidence showing him at all crime scenes.
Prabucki predominantly targeted well known high street retailers across London and claimed that his offences were committed to fund his addiction to drugs. He concentrated mainly on stealing electronic equipment, including tablets and mobile phone handsets during which he usually damaged the store's security wiring in the process. He also stole other items such as alcohol.
DS Rabbett said: "My investigation uncovered a significant amount of visual evidence to support this conviction, not only linking the suspect by his facial appearance but also by the clothing that he wore and the methods that he employed to commit dozens of crimes, thereby, creating dozens of victims."
Of the 39 offences, 38 were committed against retail outlets and one offence was theft from a person.
No items of stolen property have been recovered. The property relating to these offences is estimated to be valued at around £20,000.
The 39 crimes committed by Prabucki took place between
2012 to 2016 and all were unsolved and unlinked prior to DS Rabbett's investigation.
The offences spanned Lambeth, Haringey, Fulham, Barnet, Islington, Hackney and Westminster.
DS Eliot Porritt of the Super Recognisers' Unit said: "Prabucki had been offending for four years. These crimes were dealt with singularly and no identification or link had been made. Since the inception of the Super Recognisers' Unit we have always aimed to identify and prosecute suspects for all their crimes where they have been captured on camera.
"We use Super Recognisers to pick links from thousands of images and then we investigate to find out who that criminal is. The unit is committed to bringing prolific criminals to justice, many of whom think they have gotten away with it."
In May, another prolific thief, Richard Shelley, 38 was jailed for five years for stealing computer equipment from shops and schools in boroughs across London, including Hammersmith and Fulham, after the Met combined super recognisers' skills with computer analysis of the suspect's t-shirt.
Detectives from the Met's Super Recognisers Unit used the Forensic Image Linking system, or FILM to identify images that showed a suspect with a similar appearance to Shelley.
At the time, DCI Mick Neville, head of the Central Image Forensic Team said: "Once again Scotland Yard is at the forefront of developing crime fighting tools. Many criminals wear logos and patterns on their clothes and this software will allow us to target even more prolific criminals.
"The FILM system enables our super recognisers to industrialise the number of convictions from CCTV - with the addition of logo recognition software we can improve it further still. By using images in this systematic way, we can now solve thousands more crimes and make London safer."
June 17, 2016
