Thief snatches disabled man's vital laptop
07.09.2005
www.lapsafe.com has sourced this aticle from leightonbuzzardonline.co.uk
A DISABLED psychology student from Leighton has had his laptop computer stolen as he was being assisted into his car by his carer.
Moray Cook, 28, of Montgomery Close, has been studying to be a psychologist for over a year, and hopes eventually to help people with mental health problems.
But his studies faced a setback on Wednesday, when a callous thief pinched his specialised laptop and the customised equipment it contained, as Moray was being helped into his car outside the library.
Neither Moray nor his carer witnessed the theft, which happened at around 6pm, but he believes it was the work of an opportunist.
"It must have happened very quickly. We put the case down, and opened the door to the car, and by the time I was in it was gone," he said. A voluntary worker with the Milton Keynes City Council Sexual Assault Support Service, Moray used the machine to document research for his doctorate.
"The machine contained material from my work with people who have experienced sexual assault," he said. "Without it, I'm back to square one." Moray suffered a spinal cord injury in a diving accident in 1999, and has spent the last six years adjusting his lifestyle to being in a wheelchair.
One such adjustment has been getting used to the expensive speech-recognition software he needs to operate his laptop.
"I'm reliant on this software for my work and my study," said Moray. "It cost me over a hundred pounds and I spent quite a while storing all of the new words."
www.lapsafe.com has sourced this aticle from leightonbuzzardonline.co.uk
