West Yorkshire Police insist they have released CCTV images of the correct suspect after a "cowardly and unprovoked attack" in Leeds city centre – despite claims they have the wrong man.
The force released two photographs of the suspect as part of an appeal, after a 22-year-old woman's jaw was broken in two places by a sucker punch in Albion Street, at around 5am on Wednesday, January 1.
Dozens of people responded to the appeal on social media, claiming police had published images of the wrong man.
Responding to these posts, police said: "We are aware of comments that have been made about this appeal wrongly speculating that the man shown in the images is not the suspect for the attack.
"We would like to make clear that our enquiries indicate the man shown in the images is the correct suspect and we continue to appeal for the public’s help to identify him.
"We have contacted the victim today to discuss this and will continue to support her as we progress the investigation.
"The public’s assistance in identifying unknown suspects regularly proves invaluable to our investigations and we hope people can focus their attention on achieving that end in this case."
The victim has also told LeedsLive that police have released images of the correct suspect.
He has been described as a medium build Asian man, with short black hair, who is in his mid 20s and around 5ft 7ins tall. He was seen wearing a black jacket.
Detective inspector Richard Holmes, of Leeds District CID, said: “This was a cowardly and unprovoked attack on a young woman that left her with serious injuries that needed surgery.
“While the images are of fairly low resolution, we feel the suspect can still be identified from them and would urge anyone who recognises him to contact us immediately.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact DC 2942 Rahim at Elland Road via 101, quoting crime reference number 13200003459, or online via westyorkshire.police.uk/101livechat
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