“It’s him, it’s him, it’s him”, the man told me urgently.
While police were frantically searching in Finsbury Park for wanted sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, locals were telling me where he was.
Immediately after the dramatic arrest, filmed exclusively by Sky News we spoke to the North African man who tipped off the police.
Nadjib had been on the lookout for the convicted sex offender, who had been spending time in different parts of north London since his release from HMP Wandsworth.
He even had a folded-up newspaper clipping in his pocket so that he could check the picture himself.
He told Sky News he was “very happy when he got arrested”.
“I don’t like the sex offenders,” he said.
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“I know him from the community. He has been around here every night since he was released from prison.”
Not only did he tip the police off about the prisoner’s whereabouts, but he also witnessed the other high-profile manhunt that ended in the same park last month.
Ethiopian asylum seeker Hadush Kebatu was also arrested in Finsbury Park after a 48-hour manhunt in the capital. He was then deported to Ethiopia.
“When he [Kebatu] got arrested in the park I was there,” Nadjib said.
I asked him why both men ended up in the same park in north London.
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“Because the community, he came here for the community of Algerians,” he said.
Several Algerian people that I spoke to on Friday told me how shameful they thought it was that this sex offender was still on the run.
“Job done,” Nadjib said, before walking off.
