By SCM REPORTER
LONDON – A PREDATORY child sex offender who tried to dodge justice has been hauled before the courts—after being snared by the Met’s high-tech “Robocop” facial recognition cameras.
Mohamed Patel, 61, thought he could disappear after skipping a court date last summer for the sick grooming of a 12-year-old girl. But the pervert’s luck ran out when he walked past a police surveillance van parked on a busy East London high street.
The Live Facial Recognition (LFR) tech—which scans crowds and compares faces against a “most wanted” list—instantly flagged Patel as he strolled through Dalston in December.
Plain-clothes officers pounced on Patel in Kingsland High Street seconds after the computer gave the “red alert.”
The arrest brought an end to a manhunt that began when Patel failed to show up at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court in June 2025. He had been charged with attempting to meet a girl under 16 and engaging in sexual communication with a child.
The court heard how Patel targeted his victim, a girl of just 12, in an online chatroom.
The creep quizzed the youngster on what she wore and made a string of explicit sexual comments before travelling to meet her.
Luckily, instead of a child, he was met by Met officers who had been tracking his digital footprint.
’Despite his attempt to go to ground, Patel appeared at Wood Green Crown Court on Monday.
He was handed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, and slapped on the Sex Offenders Register for a decade.
Met bigwigs today hailed the technology as a “game-changer” for cleaning up London’s streets.
Lindsey Chiswick, the Met’s lead for facial recognition, said:
“Without it, Patel could have continued to evade police and cause further harm to other victims. LFR is a powerful tool which is helping us to catch dangerous individuals and deliver justice.”
The Met confirmed that since the start of 2024, the sci-fi tech has helped bag more than 1,700 offenders, including rapists and violent thugs.
The force moved to reassure the public that the cameras aren’t “spying” on law-abiding Londoners. They insisted that the biometric data of anyone not on a watchlist is “immediately and permanently deleted” as they walk past.
