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POLICE IN BALLYMENA are appealing for the return of two stolen camera memory cards – one of which contains the only images of a family’s stillborn baby and the other, the only professional photos of a recent family wedding.
The memory cards, which were inside a blue-green coloured purse, were stolen from a car outside a family home in the Cloughwater area of the town sometime between 10pm on Thursday 20 April and 10am on Friday 21 April.
Ruth McPeake, aunt of baby Maggie, who was born prematurely in May 2013 said : “One of the memory cards contains the only pictures we have of little Maggie who was stillborn at 24 weeks.
It is coming up to the fourth anniversary of her loss and for my sister’s sake, I am desperate to have these photos back.
We are just heartbroken to have lost them.
“I got married less than two weeks ago and the other card has all our ‘official’ photos on it.
“While they are obviously of great sentimental value and I would be delighted to get them back, it’s the photos of Maggie that are so important to us.
One of the SD cards is an AGFC brand and red in colour; the other is blue and black.
Sergeant Tracy Watterson of the PSNI said they are appealing to anyone who has information about the cards to contact police on the non-emergency number 101, quoting the reference number 317 of 21/4/17 .
“Alternatively, if you would prefer to provide information without giving your details, you can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers and speak to them anonymously on 0800 555 111.”
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Photos from 4 years ago but never backed up anywhere leaves people open to this type of loss.
@Pat Mustard: Yeah, well I’m guessing they probably realise that now don’t they.
Or maybe they need someone to point it out for them. That’ll help them I’m sure…
@Joe Arthur: It may help other people. Back up your important data or risk losing it through theft, fire, flood or storage failure.
That’s is why you download them to your pc or portable hard drive, upload them Facebook or the cloud. (With Facebook you can set it so only you can view them)
Even cards can be corrupted and fail. You need to back up your important pics. But they only become important when they disappear. Up to that point we take them for granted, and think they are secure.
I know we have 8 different places to store pictures/files. If one ever got destroyed or stolen we wouldn’t lose everything.
I hope the person that took them has on conscience and gives them back.
@Lily: Best option…. print them.
@Gerry Fitz: Exactly Gerry. With all the different and changing forms of storage it’s tough to keep up and constantly moving your memories from format to format. Just print them and cherish them. Photo prints (from photo shops) will last a lifetime and are really cheap to print these days.
@Soccer T’s: lol yes because usb flash drive have changed so much in the last 17 years!!!! and all my flash drives from 4 years ago are obsolete. lazy people will not back up anything and then complain when its lost!!!! no sympathy
@Brian Kelleher: They have changed a lot actually. How much does your 16mb USB hold (about 5 pictures)??? First we used CDs (will be obsolete soon), then USB based storage devices, now it’s cloud based…..that’s all in the last 15+ years. With technology developing at the pace it is you have no idea how your images will be stored in another 15 years. I was simply suggesting that printing them is probably the most sensible option if you really want to “save” them.
Nothing worse losing something so valuable to you but means nothing to the finder the majority of things don’t get returned to the owner but hopefully this gets spread
Old fashioned photos are the best
This is exactly why i still pull out my film camera for special occassions
have your say