Shearer pleads for teen’s machine return

TOON legend Alan Shearer has voiced his support for a disabled teenager whose vital speech machine has been stolen.

Miya Thirlby has been left unable to communicate after cruel thieves took the computer from her dad’s car, when it was parked outside their home.

Paul Johnson, a devoted Newcastle United fan originally from Whitley Bay, has now launched a social media campaign in a bid to reunite his daughter with her life-changing piece of equipment.

And Shearer has now appealed to his 583,000 Twitter followers for help.

The legendary striker tweeted: “Come on man. Do the decent thing and please somehow get the machine back to this little girl.”

Miya, 16, suffers from epilepsy and cerebral palsy and uses a tablet with sophisticated equipment which generates speech from what she is looking at.

Paul, who now lives in Plymouth with his family, said the Accent 1400 cost around £5,700 and he is now appealing for information about its whereabouts.

The 40-year-old business analyst, said: “I want to get the word out to get it back. Miya cannot talk but I get the feeling she knows it has gone, she uses it every day.

“It will be upsetting for her.”

Paul believes the thieves may have thought they were stealing a regular computer as it was stored in a laptop bag.

And he is desperate to get it back for Miya as the software was specially adapted to work with her eyes.