PENSIONER Karolena Starr turned internet detective to try to find the burglar who snatched her pension money, a jury heard.

But because she couldn't be sure that the man she found on Facebook was the man who burgled her – even though she later picked him out in an identity parade – the suspect's trial was stopped as a judge felt she may have pointed out the man she saw on Facebook, not the one who stole from her.

Mrs Starr, 62, told Bristol Crown Court a caller with 'catlike' features visited her home and, when he thought her back was turned, she saw him snatch her purse containing £80. When her neighbour Pat said the burglar's description matched her grandson, Mrs Starr found Charlie Humphreys on social networking site Facebook and later picked him out from a video identity parade.

Mr Humphreys, 20, of St Georges Road, Bristol, denied burglary in July last year.

Mrs Starr found him on Facebook some five days after the incident – but told police she was unsure it was him – and two weeks later saw him in the identity parade and said he was the burglar.

On day two of his trial yesterday, Judge Michael Roach heard a submission of no case to answer by defence barrister Anna Midgley.

The submission was based on the risk that Mrs Starr, having seen Mr Humphreys on Facebook, could have picked him out from the identity line-up just because she had seen him on her computer, not in her home.

Judge Roach agreed there was a strong danger of mistaken identity on those grounds, and invited the jury to return a not guilty verdict.

The judge said: "The central issue is, was this defendant the burglar?

"The only evidence is the correctness of the identification evidence given by Mrs Starr. In my judgement this is one of those rare cases where evidence of identification is too tenuous to put before a jury to consider the evidence."

Mr Humphreys celebrated his acquittal, saying he had been put through "a year of hell" and wanted it known he was cleared of wrongdoing.

Mrs Starr had told the jury a man aged about 19, with a catlike nose and beautiful teeth, called at her bungalow in Knowle at 10.30pm and asked her to test her taps.

She said: "He said his grandfather had moved into a vacant bungalow and the water was not switched on.

"He asked if he could have a bottle of water so that his granddad could make a cup of tea in the morning."

It was as she filled up an empty two-litre Diet Coke bottle that the man started to act suspiciously, she said, saying he had a bad leg and going to sit in her living room uninvited.

Mrs Starr told the court she kept her tap running, peered into her living room and saw the man pocket her purse.

The court heard her purse contained her £80 pension money she collected that day as well as her phone and shop cards.

She said that a conversation with her neighbour prompted her to conduct a Miss Marple-style search on Facebook for the intruder.

She told the jury: "I've never met the man. His photo came up, about passport size. I clicked and enlarged it to 150 per cent. It was quite grainy and I could recognise the face on the photo. The man in that photo is the man that came into my house and took my purse."

Mrs Starr later picked out the intruder from the police video identity parade.

Miss Midgley, for Humphreys, reminded Mrs Starr she had told police she couldn't be sure that the man in the Facebook photo was the burglar.

Mrs Starr conceded that she wasn't too sure about it being the same man in the Facebook photo.

But she was "99 per cent sure" she had picked out the right man from the ID parade.

She said she had not spotted a tattoo on the man's neck, or a scar on his top lip – both of which were present on Mr Humphreys.