A TV presenter has made an emotional plea  for the return of her daughter’s laptop – taken four days before her final university hand in.

Gardening author and TV presenter Lucy Summers, who lives in Hove, hoped to prick the conscience of the people who had taken design student Elle Lockhart’s backpack, inside which was her Macbook computer.

The 23-year-old studied her art foundation in Brighton before taking up a prestigious place at Goldsmith’s College in London to do design.

She had backed up her work before her final hand in – but the hard drive was in the same back pack as the computer.

Elle had gone for a drink with students at the Marquis of Granby in London and some time after 10.30pm on Thursday night when the bag went missing.

Mrs Summers, from Hove, said it contained three years of work by her “devastated” daughter, who is 4% off a first class honours degree, which she needs to hand in as part of the course.

She said: “She went in for one drink. She is totally devastated because there is three years’ work on there.

“At the moment she’s worrying that she’s not going to be able to finish her degree.

“She’s done her presentation pieces, but the written work does count for an awful lot.

“She was thinking of going on to the Royal College, but now it’s all a bit up in the air.

“She called me on Friday morning absolutely in tears. She’s worked so hard.

“She said to me ‘Mum, I just feel like my stomach has fallen out of my body’.

“I’m just hoping to raise awareness and maybe prick someone’s conscious and think about handing it back.

“But hopefully another art student picked it up by mistake and is still sleeping off their hangover.”

Mrs Summers said anyone with information should email her on info@theogc.co.uk.