Read something interesting on the train home today - a woman had her flat robbed by an individual masquerading as a neighbour....

London Lite - 2 August 2007 - Anna Davis

" A woman is using the social networking site Facebook to try and catch a burgler who masqueraded as a neighbour to rob her flat.  Jackie McGeown, 31, posted photos of the their on a page called "Do you recognise my burgler? to track him down after her flat in north london was burgled on Tuesday.

He pretended to live in a neighbouring flat, befriended builders then broke into all three flats in the building and made off with a haul worth thousands of pounds.  Amonth the items the theif helped himself to were laptops, iPods and a copy of Ms McGeown's half-finished manuscript for a new book.

Ms McGeown said: "The builders described him as the nciest man you could meet.  He spent half an hour with them, made them a cup of tea and even offered to make them a sandwich."  While they were drinking their tea, he managed to break into one of the flast, steal the keys to the others and burgled them all.  "He filled my two suitcases with laptops, iPods and even a flat-screen TV," she said.

Having loaded up, he said goodbye to the builders, telling them he was off on holiday.  It made them suspicious - and one of them took a photograph of him on a mobile phone.  Ms McGeown, who works for Sky TV, is now hoping one of the networking sites 1.5million UK users recognises the theif.

On her Crimewatch-style page, she says: "Is this the cheekiest burglar in the world?  Do you recognise him?  He's the one in the middle with the jumper on his shoulder and the sunglasses.  Maybe he's burgled you?"

Ms McGeown said: "I've found people I didn't really want to find on Facebook so I thought by some freak coincidence he might be on there".

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Would love your comments on this.