HEARTLESS thieves broke into the premises of the International Aid charity, in Leyland, and escaped with a new computer - just one day after it had been installed.

A Black and Decker cordless drill and £88 cash were also among the haul taken sometime overnight on Monday, July 5, between 7.10pm and 8.50am at the unit on Lancashire Enterprises Business Park, in Centurion Way.

Police say the thieves used bodily force to gain entry in the back of the building before breaking into an interior Portacabin used as an office.

International Aid acquisitions manager Sioux McDonald branded the crooks 'heartless' after they made off with the IBM Midi Tower computer unit and other goods worth £933.

She said: "The computer was donated to the charity and only installed on Sunday. It contained a lot of irreplaceable information about the charity and could translate around 40 different languages.

"I'm really stuck without it and I don't see the reason for it.

"International Aid is a registered charity which helps for hundreds of people around the world and now, without the computer, we have no way of getting in touch with our overseas drivers.

"To steel from us like this is simply a heartless act."

Caring Preston Bus driver Dave Pidworth and former driver Jimmy Thackeray, who donated the hardware, gave up spare time to install the machine.

Jimmy said: "The pair of us built it with different programmes specifically for the charity and spent about five hours on Sunday installing it.

"It's baffling how someone could do this. It's sickening."

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