A Melbourne resident used every digital tool at his disposal, and a dose of crowdsourcing, to outsmart an alleged burglar during a suburban heist.
In a case of digital "gotcha", the alleged thief was first spotted on CCTV cameras, then snapped on an iPhone, before his image was shared across the victim's contact list.
The resident, Ted, who did not want his surname used, received an automated alert on his mobile phone that his house alarm had been triggered at 11am on November 5. He drove home to find it had been broken into, and the burglar had fled.
"I rang a neighbour, who remotely checked his CCTV footage and found the guy leaving my house at 11.03am," he said.
"He described the guy and what he was wearing and I gave that information to police."
About 3pm, Ted noticed a man matching the CCTV footage description near his house, so he started taking the man's photo on his phone.
"He turned around to tell me to 'bugger off', and I got a perfect shot of his face," he said.
By this time Ted's neighbour had come to show him the CCTV footage, confirming it matched the man Ted had photographed.
Ted sent the photo to his wife, Daniella, who shared it as a group message via SMS.
"A girlfriend a few streets from us rang and said 'he's in my street now'," Daniella said.
"It was so quick, it didn't even make it to Facebook."
Ted hit the road and called police when he spotted the man.
"I chased him, yelling at residents to ring the police as I made a citizen's arrest."
It doesn't stop there.
Ted's photos showed that earlier the alleged thief had a backpack as he walked through a park, but he didn't have it when he was arrested.
"I told the police, who found the backpack and the goodies."
"It was a real community effort," he said.
Police said a 23-year-old man from Meadow Heights, Victoria, had been charged with two counts of burglary and theft. He had been bailed to appear in court on December 9.
