Woman releases her own CCTV after savage assault in east London - criticising 'grainy' image issued by police

The woman issued her own crystal clear images of the suspect after 'terrible' CCTV from police
Benedict Moore-Bridger19 October 2017
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A woman savagely assaulted in east London has released her own images of the suspect after criticising the police’s “terrible” and “grainy” appeal pictures.

Micha Birgitta, 31, had her nose broken and is still suffering double vision after being set upon by a man in Shoreditch.

The man confronted her and two friends before punching her in the face and knocking out her male friend.

Police released CCTV stills of the attack in an attempt to catch the man earlier this month.

Micha Birgitta, 31, had her nose broken and is still suffering double vision
Archant

But the quality of the pictures were so bad that Ms Birgitta has now released her own images of the suspect.

She said she could not believe that a high-quality video taken on her friend’s phone wasn’t put out by officers targeting the attacker.

Police issued grainy CCTV of the suspect
Metropolitan Police

She said: “The CCTV is terrible quality. Even his own mum wouldn’t recognise him in that video.”

She said she was so “desperate” for the man to be caught that she was now doing the police’s job for them.

“Whenever I see someone who looks like him I feel unsafe.

“I’m afraid of someone running up behind me.”

Scotland Yard said they were only made aware of the new photographs yesterday.

A spokesman said: “We will always use the best images we have to appeal for those wanted for questioning by police.

“In our initial appeal on this case, we used the only image we had available.

The victim was assaulted in a savage attack

“On Wednesday we were made aware of better and clearer images which we are working to release asap once we have spoken with the victims in this case.”

The incident took place just before 3am on August 13.

Ms Birgitta had just left nightclub East Bloc with two friends when a cyclist rode into them in City Road and fell of his bike.

Ms Birgitta, who works for a tech company, said: “He was super angry and pushed me away to get to my friend.

“He was yelling about how it was our fault he fell over. My friend was drunk so he started arguing.”

The suspect ran off after punching Ms Birgitta and her friend. But he came back as she rang 999 in a daze to raise the alarm.

“He said: ‘Are you okay?’ and I said: ‘Do I look like I’m okay? I have a huge bump on my head.’

“I said: ‘What’s your name?’ and he said it was Omar.

“Then he flipped me off and ran off again. I ran after him and was yelling at people to stop him - and then when I went back I saw my friend had been knocked out.

“He’s okay now. He was really lucky. I’m not all right. I still have pain in my nose and it’s crooked.

“I have double vision in one eye. The doctors told me to wait four weeks - it’s been two months now and it’s still there.”

Anyone with information should contact Hackney police via 101, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or crimestoppers-uk.org.

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