Degree of doubt: 19 months of work stolen from PhD student

Burglar breaks into Woodhouse home and robs student of his research


We’ve all been there – after countless hours of painstaking work you’ve just hit the word count when your computer crashes and you lose everything.

But for Frederick Pessu, every student’s worst nightmare became a whole lot worse on September 29th.

The PhD student lost a staggering 19 months of his research when a burglar entered his home and nicked his hard drive and USB stick.

Unthinkable … Hours in The Brotherton all for nothing

 The thief entered through an insecure window on the ground floor and also bagged a laptop and TV during the break-in in Woodhouse, a student area regularly targeted by thieves.

The criminal was caught later that day but unfortunately the work could not be recovered. 

While the burglar was jailed for 856 days, the sentence does little to sweeten the situation for Frederick, who must start the research again from scratch.