Website reveals London’s most wanted

Scotland Yard re-launched its most wanted website today in a bid to trace more missing murderers, rapists, robbers and fraudsters.

The London force has asked charity Crimestoppers to host its latest list of almost 100 wanted men and women.

Members of the public in every one of the capital’s 32 boroughs can examine people wanted for crimes in their area.

Among the high-profile wanted men are suspected murderer James Tomkins and Afghan asylum seeker Fida Utmanzai.

Utmanzai, who slit the throat of a butcher in Tottenham, escaped from a north London psychiatric hospital earlier this year.

There are also several pictures of unidentified suspects captured on CCTV cameras in the street, businesses and on public transport.

But there appeared to be some early teething troubles on the website, with some of the best-known cases absent.

They included Farouk Abdulhak, who is wanted over the murder of Norwegian business student Martine Vik Magnussen and is thought to be hiding in Yemen.

The website also posted the location of many offenders as various prisons and psychiatric hospitals.

One suspected sex offender is given the address of the Met’s Empress State Building and a man accused of making threats to kill has his full home address listed.

Other wanted appeals involve suspects who have been on the run for a long time, including a man caught with a weapon in 2001.

Deputy Commissioner Tim Godwin said police work “tirelessly” to catch suspects but will always need the help of the public.

He said: “This new website carries more information than ever before, allowing the public to search by crime type and location.

“This is a great tool that everyone can use to help make London even safer by helping us get criminals off our streets.”

More than 20 people are charged with criminal offences every day as a result of information being passed to Crimestoppers.

The charity has recently launched a series of successful campaigns targeting offenders who have fled overseas, including to Spain and Holland.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the new website is “not definitive” and will be gradually updated with wanted people.

* The London’s Most Wanted website can be found at http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/londonmostwanted/

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