A DEVASTATED business owner has been left reeling after a burglar broke in and stole equipment worth £15k.

But the crook was caught on camera and police are hoping to track him down.

GEL Studios staff in Hargreaves Road were devastated when they came into work on Wednesday to find their expensive equipment gone and a window forced.

The web design and graphics agency’s managing director Graeme Leighfield was on the verge of tears as he broadcast the bad news in a video on his business’ Facebook page.

He said: “If this had happened to us two years ago, it would have wiped us out completely.

“It’s been such a huge shock, this has never happened to us before and I’m still trying to process it all.

“It’s caused an incredible amount of disruption which is going to have long-term knock-on effects as we have around 20 projects on the go.

“While we wait for the insurance to be sorted out, we’ve forked out for five new machines because we can’t afford to go a day without equipment.

“When we saw what had happened, I rang the police straight away and they came over to gather evidence and take statements.”

The burglar may try to sell his ill-gotten gains to unsuspecting customers.

The stolen iMacs had the serial numbers C02R24PRGG7N, C02QG95HGG7N, C02QG5Z8GG7N, C02S453HGG7N, C02RL0HYGG7N.

Not only are they stolen property but they will also be unusable.

Graeme added: “After one of the other businesses in the building had a break-in, we upgraded our security measures.

"The computers can’t be accessed without a password and everything on it will be wiped once connected to the internet, so they’re basically useless now.

“It makes the whole thing pointless in a way, nobody benefits from it.

“There’s CCTV footage of the burglar disengaging the lock on the window, opening it and sneaking in and out of the office from 10.44pm on Tuesday.

“The amount of support we’ve received from people around Swindon since this happened has been fantastic and our clients have been very understanding.

“This has been very humbling and it’s helped us stay positive.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said: “We are currently investigating this after six Apple computers were stolen.

"We got a call from the owner first thing on Wednesday at 8.30am.”