Sandhurst Road
Sandhurst Road, Edmonton, London, was where the alleged rape took place Google Maps

A man has been arrested for allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl at knifepoint while posing as a police officer in north London.

Detective said about 5.30pm on Wednesday (27 January) the 32-year-old man, who was on a bicycle, is under suspicion of stopping the girl in Sandhurst Road, Edmonton and telling the girl that she matched the description of a shoplifter and that he needed to search her.

As he carried at the false search he then allegedly threatened her with a knife and raped her.

The attack is being linked to another incident an hour earlier in Shirley Grove, half a mile away in the London Borough of Haringey.

In that incident, a man who also on a bike had stopped a girl and told her to come with him to a van. He repeated his claim that the girl needed to be searched because she matched the description of someone he needed to arrest.

He is accused of then grabbing her by the wrists but she struggled and managed to escape.

Detective Inspector Tracey Cormack, from the Met's Sexual Offences Exploitation and Child Abuse Command, said: "We are appealing for anyone who may have witnessed these offences or think they may have been approached by this man to come forward and report this to the police."

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