Uni lecturer reunited with stolen work
ACADEMIC’S HARD DRIVE TAKEN FROM HER HOME IN BURGLARY
Crime Reporter A LECTURER has been reunited with the stolen work she feared she would never see again.
Dr Honglei Li lost precious photos and more than 10 years worth of writing when thieves raided her home last October.
Among the items taken was a hard drive on which she had stored research, creative writing and family photos, for the past decade.
The Northumbria University academic feared she would never see the hard drive again, and that whoever had stolen it would delete her contents, which included pictures of her baby son.
But she is now over the moon after receiving an email out of the blue telling her the disc had been found.
And after collecting it from a shop in Byker, Newcastle, she was delighted to discover her documents were intact.
Dr Li said: “I’m very pleased. I didn’t think I would get it back. It’s really good.”
Dr Li was tending to her baby son, Emmanuel, when the burglars crept in through an unlocked rear door at her home in Red Barns, near Newcastle’s Quayside.
They helped themselves to a number of items, including a laptop, three smartphones and Dr Li’s wallet.
But after realising she had been burgled, the new mum discovered her hard drive – which she had used to back up her work, was also missing.
Dr Li, who is a senior lecturer in computer and information sciences at Northumbria University, made an appeal begging for whoever had the drive not to wipe it.
She said: “All my recent research papers are on the hard drive and my unpublished research paper... It also contains my personal diary, some of my personal writing, including poems I had written. And family photos going back to 2013, including pictures of my baby. “They are really precious to me. I was devastated when I discovered all that was missing.” But as the weeks and months wore on, she began to give up hope of ever seeing it again. However, Dr Li received an email from a mobile phone shop in Byker. Staff told her the hard drive had been left in their shop by someone who came in to use their computer several months ago. And they had since found her details on it and got in touch. “At first I thought it was a spam email,” she said. “But I went straight there and they told me someone had just left it there while using their computer. I’ve just checked the contents and I think everything is there. I’m so fortunate to get it back.” Dr Li