Youth gets 3 years after Mile End burglar’s description fitted him perfectly

Gerson Lopes was arrested walking along the street in London’s East End because his description matched an intruder who had just broken into a block of flats.

Police were called to Ropery Street in Mile End by residents reporting the intruder trying to get into the block.

The raider fled before they arrived—but his description was quickly circulated to patrol cars in the area.

An officer noticed Lopes who fitted the description so well that he stopped and questioned him, following the break-in on December 11.

Lopes, a 20-year-old from Poplar, was remanded in custody until March 12 when he pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court to burglary and given three years in a young offenders’ institution—less 92 days while in custody on remand.

He had also breached an Anti Social Behaviour order not to mix with a group of more than three within Tower Hamlets, which was included in his sentence.