Super recognisers: 60 Minutes meets the Scotland Yard officers with crime-solving super powers

BRITAIN’S Scotland Yard is recruiting super recognisers — people who literally never forget a face — in order to solve crimes.

WITH his head shrouded in a black beanie and a red scarf tucked into his collar and fixed above his nose, the rioter’s childlike eyes were all that could be seen.

But the single image of that narrow strip of the man’s face, caught on CCTV in the streets of London, was enough to lead one of Scotland Yard’s most sophisticated and unique policing units to arrest the man, one of the instigators of the 2011 riots.

When police went to track down the young man, it was a member of a team with a very particular set of skills who was charged with picking him out of a crowd and identifying his face using only that obscure and slightly grainy image in his memory.

Scotland Yard successfully convicted this man, with officers recognising his face from only this grainy CCTV vision.

That officer was what’s known as a “super recogniser” — someone who, literally, never forgets a face.

The world’s most advanced police forces have found special use for super recognisers, and as 60 Minutes discovered when they travelled to London to investigate the super recogniser squad, Australia and other countries’ cops are taking a closer look too.

“There are literally hundreds of crimes that have been solved through super recognisers,” journalist Liz Hayes told news.com.au.

“They can literally identify faces from mugshots they have been shown or even people they’ve arrested. They can go through CCTV footage and identify suspects, and they’ve found that it’s extraordinarily successful.”

Hayes said the unit is now being viewed as a weapon for policing as useful as DNA and fingerprints, and it’s backed by the convictions it gets.

60 Minutes reporter Liz Hayes with super recogniser James Rabbett.

Those who possess the skills have been assigned to cases like the mob sexual assaults in Cologne over New Years, and would be likely to have offered to lend their skills to identifying the bombers in last week’s attacks in Brussels, Hayes said.

Though the reporter and her crew studied dozens of cases that had successfully led to convictions through the crime-fighting super power, she says she was most taken aback by the unit’s work in the London riots.

“They spent thousands of hours going over CCTV vision from all over London to pick out faces, and some of those members of the force who were brilliant at identification were able to use those images so effectively,” she said.

“It’s just incredible to meet these people and see them at work and see the crimes they’ve solved. They’re incredibly dedicated people. I suggested they were obsessive, but they said they were passionate.”

The super recognisers were deployed to investigate the London riots, and other major incidents since then.

Around one per cent of the population are believed to qualify as super recognisers.

Not all of them have to be police officers, but those who have joined the team at Scotland Yard, Hayes said, believe they’ve truly found their place in the force.

“I met a young girl who has been identified as a super recogniser, and she said she would say hello to people and they wouldn’t say it back, then eventually she would realise she was recognising them from a long time ago and from memories from the past,” Hayes said.

“It’s something that can potentially seem like a burden to some people, but for these police officers who have found their place, they’re really making the most of their skills.

With Australian forces looking to recruit super recognisers for themselves, those who’ve faced similar awkward situations, and have a passion for fighting crime, could soon find their calling.

And anyone with something to hide, had better watch out.

60 Minutes airs tonight at 8.15pm on Channel Nine.