Father urges thief to return disabled daughter's computerpublished at 07:47 Greenwich Mean Time 12 January 2018
Ryan Morrison
BBC News Online
The father of a teenager who is deaf and has cerebral palsy says he hopes they will be able to recover a special machine that allows her to communicate.
A host of celebrities have shared Paul Johnson's tweet appealing for the machine's return, including former footballer Paul Gascoigne, who has donated £1,000 towards a replacement for Miya Thirlby.
Allow Twitter content?
This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
Although the family has now raised enough money to replace it, Mr Johnson said the original machine had been specially trained and programmed for her.
It also has pictures of her family on it and speaks their name when she looks at a picture.
Mr Johnson said the thieves may have thought they were stealing a regular computer as it was stored in a laptop bag.
He said: "I'm not 100% sure the thief knew what it was, but, with the press and everything around it, he must know now [what] and where it is. For him to still not do anything about it is just heartless."
