I just deleted a few articles from an article directory as they had as far as I knew not been used and I figured I could make better use of them elsewhere.

After I hit the delete button on one of them I checked to see if anyone had actually used it. Someone had, but had removed my links and put theirs in.
However, the issue is now I'm thinking I can't use the article myself as it will appear as a duplicate of this thieving ....

I've emailed the site it is on but without the original copy in place I guess I'm stuffed.

Any ideas?
Thanks