A burglar has been jailed for stealing computer equipment from shops and schools after he was identified by his “distinctive” t-shirt.

Richard Shelley, 38 of Griffin Manor Way, Plumstead, was jailed for five years earlier this month at Southwark Crown Court for 11 counts of burglary.

The burglaries were carried out between January 2013 and June 2015, across Waltham Forest, Hammersmith, Westminster and Richmond-upon-Thames.

During the incidents, in which Shelley mainly stole laptops and computer equipment used in education, he was captured on CCTV at a number of crime scenes.

Detectives were able to use a “Forensic Image Linking system” (FILM) to identify a suspect with a similar appearance to Shelley.

While working to place Shelley at the scene of various offences, officers realised he regularly wore a particular shirt with a distinctive logo.

Running the images through logo recognition software, they were able to locate additional offences committed by Shelley when he was wearing the distinctive t-shirt.

The facial recognition identifications combined with the logo recognition searches resulted in the 11 convictions. When arrested Shelley was already serving a suspended sentence for burglary.

DCI Mick Neville, head of the Central Image Forensic Team said: "Many criminals wear logos and patterns on their clothes and this software will allow us to target even more prolific criminals.

"The FILM system enables our super recognisers to industrialise the number of convictions from CCTV - with the addition of logo recognition software we can improve it further still.

“By using images in this systematic way, we can now solve thousands more crimes and make London safer."