A story in the Times of London about the Tonbridge Robbery says that one of the suspects was arrested “while trying to open a building society account”. And police released an “e-fit” of one of the robbers.
What is a “building society account”, and an “e-fit”?
“Building Society” (UK) = “Savings and Loan” (US). Note that the vast majority of “building societies” in the UK today are actually banks. A financial institution that takes deposits and lends money to people to enable them to buy property.
“e-fit” = Electronic image of the criminal’s face, put together by an artist. Replaced the old “Identikit”, where the image of the criminal was put together from seperate photographs of eyes, hairstyles, etc. Not sure what the US equivalent is.
I see. I think the U.S. media would use the term “artist’s composite”.
Thank you.
Except that an e-fit is not composed by an artist but by a computer. This stores stock images of various facial features which can arranged , with the help of a witness, to form a picture of a wanted person. But it does not always work , as this story shows.