SOHAM teenager Joe Jordan, pictured, has been left devastated after a cruel thief stole his £400 electric guitar from a school storeroom. Joe, 13, had taken the guitar into Soham Village College for a private lesson. But at the end of the day he discover

SOHAM teenager Joe Jordan, pictured, has been left devastated after a cruel thief stole his £400 electric guitar from a school storeroom.

Joe, 13, had taken the guitar into Soham Village College for a private lesson.

But at the end of the day he discovered it had gone and spent so long searching for it that he missed his school bus.

His mum, Linda, phoned local music shops and pawnbrokers in the hope that the thief may have tried to sell it.

She said from her home in The Causeway, Isleham: "Joe is absolutely devastated. We bought him the Fender Stratocaster guitar, which is wine red in colour, as a special present and now he can't practise.

"We haven't got a clue who might have taken it but someone must know something about it."

The guitar was in a distinctive rectangular black case with an alligator on one side. It had Joe's name on a leather label attached to the case.

It went missing two weeks ago from a college storeroom.

College assistant principal, Stephen Kenna, said: "We searched around the school and outside, raised the matter with the caretaker and in assembly and asked every member of staff to discuss it in their classrooms.

"We have 100 children having lessons on that day and we cannot lock the room where the instruments are kept - it is just not practical. Expensive musical instruments of this type can be included as named articles on insurance.

"There is a CCTV camera on the main pathway into the school and the police will be looking at that.