In early August 2015 one of Porritt\u2019s junior colleagues (who asked for his name to be withheld) was looking at CCTV images from the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where he had worked as a beat cop. The officer noticed the same, smartly dressed thief \u201d\u201c the man the team later nicknamed McNulty \u201d\u201c in two stills taken in upmarket shops. Snap. Then another, and another \u201d\u201c snap, snap. As he broadened his search to other affluent boroughs of London, the officer kept seeing the same face. He printed out the images of the serial shoplifter and tacked them to a wall in the office. He told me: \u201cWhen I had 13 or 14 crimes, I said to Eliot, \u201d\u02dcThere\u2019s \u00c2\u00a335,000 worth of goods stolen by this guy. We need to do something.\u2019\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
They downloaded the CCTV clips from where the stills had been taken. McNulty\u2019s hands were so fast that in some cases the officers had to slow the footage down to ascertain exactly when the theft had occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate using the words \u201d\u02dctalented\u2019 or \u201d\u02dcgood\u2019 for a criminal, when they could be so many better things, like a street magician or a dextrous watchmaker,\u201d\u009d said Porritt. \u201cBut when we watched him [McNulty], it was like: \u201d\u02dcThat\u2019s good.\u2019\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n