Amelia's Rainbow loses memories in social media hack

Amelia's Rainbow was set up 12 years ago in memory of Amelia Grace Cooper, who died from cancer.

Amelia Cooper (Image: Submitted)

Now, the charity supports 170 children in Dorset by providing funds for activities, gifts and days out for the children and their families.

On October 7, the charity's Facebook page was hacked and the account was permanently deleted.

Farah Batchelor, charity manager, said: "It's devastating because, given the nature of our charity, we deal with children with life-limiting or terminal conditions.

"So there are pictures of children that aren't with us anymore, including some of the older pictures of Amelia and everyone who helped in the earlier days.

"We spent a lot of tear-filled hours trying everything to get Facebook to restore the account, but to no avail.

"We lost 14 years of memories, photos and all the followers we had been building.

"Facebook is our main form of communication with our community, and we are devastated that hackers would take this from us."

The charity said its only option was to set up a new Facebook account and try to recover as many photos as possible.

The new account can be found at facebook.com/share/wUK4KYVctRFUWAzm.

Farah spoke about the impact the cyber attack could have on one of the charity's main Christmas projects, the Toy Appeal.

Toy Appeal helpers (Image: Submitted)

At Christmas, Amelia's Rainbow delivers sacks of gifts to poor children around the county.

The charity uses its social media platform to engage with the public as well as local businesses to donate new toys to drop off points across Dorset.

Farah said: "My concern if we just did business as normal, people would think our new Facebook was a bit dodgy, with not many pictures or followers.

"Throughout the following weeks we will be asking for people to share memories or photos over the years so the page can start feeling like a reflection of us again."