A BURGLARY appears to have been committed by a Martian with a partially severed ear, five o’clock shadow and a stick-on moustache from a Christmas cracker. Have you seen him?

Kim Rule, joint licensee of the Grebe pub in Stalham, Norfolk, has asked police to try harder at their computerised image of the man that she saw stealing two small safes from her premises.

The e-fit picture was created from a description of the intruder given to officers by Mrs Rule. She did not get a good look at his face, but she believes that he was human. She fears that he will never be caught on the basis of such an inaccurate image.

Police have issued a picture of a man with the top of his right ear missing, tousled hair, dark, heavy eyebrows and a moustache covering three quarters of his top lip.

“The man was a pretty odd-looking character and we didn’t get a good look at his face, but he didn’t look that odd,” Mrs Rule said yesterday. “The man in the picture has half an ear; he didn’t have half an ear. And his moustache wasn’t like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who looks like that in Stalham, or anywhere else, in my life. I don’t think anyone will recognise him from the e-fit.”

Mrs Rule has contacted Norfolk police and asked them to produce a better likeness of the man who distracted staff at the bar while an accomplice slipped into a back room and took the safes, containing cash and valuables. Based on Mrs Rule’s verbal description, the man at the bar is believed to be aged between 18 and 20, 5ft 4in, with short, brown hair, stubble, a dark complexion and a moustache, but not anything like the one in the picture.

“Apparently the problem with the moustache was that the police only had long moustaches on their computer, so they had to sort of chop it off at the ends,” Mrs Rule said.

Norfolk police would not be drawn on the question of electronic drawings. “We couldn’t comment on current e-fits as that might jeopardise investigations,” a spokesman said. But he later issued a statement saying: “Staff are trained in the use of equipment to compile e-fit images. The e-fit image is compiled as a result of the witness to the crime giving as accurate and detailed a description as possible, and how much they are able to recall.

“The e-fit is a powerful visual tool used to catch criminals. It is a personal recollection of the offender and is a valuable alternative to just a written description.”

Privately, Norfolk police are highly amused at the image. And, they acknowledge, if the felon really looks like that, they shouldn’t have much trouble catching him. Unless he’s hot-footed it back to Mars..

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