The owner of a children's role-play café says the community's support has helped restore her faith in humanity after a devastating cyber attack.

As previously reported by the Echo, Sweet Peas' role play cafe in Fareham, was targeted by a hacker who changed the banking information on the till system at the start of May, stealing £3k.

This meant that all card payments made throughout the month bypassed the café and went directly into the hacker's account.

The money would have been used to pay staff and rent. It left owner Pamela Lawrence "shocked to the core", saying it had left her feeling "violated".

READ MORE: Café owner in tears feeling 'violated' after hacker steals £3k

A fundraiser set up on GoFundMe to help the café weather the effects of the hack has raised more than £1k, which Pamela says will go towards supporting the business.

Pamela said: "The only way I have kept going is by having a loan from my brother, which helped pay the staff wages.

"The fundraiser has been a godsend. People have been so kind and generous.

"It has been overwhelming, it chokes you up, you don't realise. It has restored a bit of my faith in humanity after what happened. People are just incredible, amazing really."

The vicious cyber attack left only £87 in the business's account.

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Pamela has been in touch with her till system, Zettle, to try and recover the money, and has contacted the Police and Fraud Action.

"They (Zettle) have set up a whole new system with me now, it is much more robust, I wish they had told me before," added Pamela.

She adds that she is still waiting for the National Fraud Team to get back to her, but understands they can take 28 days, which have yet to fully elapse.

Following the attack, Pamela urged her fellow small businesses to be extra vigilant against cyber attacks, saying: "Little family run independent businesses should realise cyber attacks can happen to them, it's not only the M&S who get targeted, change passwords weekly, look at your accounts daily, twice daily, log out all the time, be vigilant, be cautious, be untrusting."