UK COMPUTERS STOLEN FROM BUSINESS Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Thieves steal four years of work on city firm's laptops:
Thieves steal four years of work on city firm's laptops
GEMMA FRASER (gfraser@edinburghnews.com)

A BUSINESSWOMAN has lost four years of work after thieves broke into her shop and stole computers less than three months after it opened.

Thieves raided the October First lighting consultancy in Morningside and made off with the three laptops and other electrical equipment worth around £5000."

Owner Heather Wilson said she does not care about the stolen equipment. But she made a desperate appeal for the return of the data stored on them which she needs to run her Morningside Road business.

The laptops contain client contacts and important e-mails, as well as portfolios of past projects which she uses to show potential customers. Sadly, Mrs Wilson did not have the data backed up, and now faces starting again from scratch.

The 43-year-old said: "It's got projects, photographs, quotations - everything that runs the business. The photographs that we use for presentations have taken about four years to put together.

"There's a whole history of relationships on there with contacts and e-mails and that's all gone. This is almost like grief."

As well as the laptops, the thieves also made off with other electrical equipment, including an LCD TV, DVD player, video camera and two digital cameras when they broke into the shop on Monday night.

It comes just two months after Mrs Wilson officially opened the October First shop with co-director Anders Blair. The pair used to run their business, which was established on October 1 2002, from the Midlothian Innovation Centre.

They have built up a host of commercial and domestic clients across Scotland, including Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, St Cecilia's Music Hall in Edinburgh and Stevenson House in Haddington. Mrs Wilson, who lives in Craiglockhart, said she and Mr Blair will struggle to run their business without the information and portfolios which they have compiled over the past four years.

She added: "The shop is very much our baby. It feels almost like we have been robbed at home because there's nothing impersonal about this place.

"It's only when you go through the day you think 'I've not got that' and it dawns on you the importance of losing everything."

As well as the vital business information, one of the laptops contained the only surviving photo of Mrs Wilson's dog, which died last summer.

A number of photos taken during the renovation of the premises - which used to be The Fairy Shop - were also on the stolen laptops. Mrs Wilson is appealing to whoever stole the computers, or knows where they are, to return the information on them.

She said: "The data is of no use to anyone else. The re-sale value that they are going to get back from selling the laptops is nothing compared to the loss that we have had because it's years of work.

"I just want whoever took them to please think about the knock-on effect they have had on a small business."

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: "We are appealing to anyone who may have stolen the laptops to return the data on them to the victims so they can continue with their business.

"It's of no use to anyone else and we would hope that someone will hear about their plight and help them."