"SUPERHERO husband" Warren Parker said he was horrified when confronted with obscene images of children when helping police net paedophile Owen Crowther.

After returning home with his family from a music festival last July to find his house had been burgled, a chain of events got underway which saw the 42-year-old quantity surveyor track down depraved Crowther using an IP address.

Mr Parker told his story after Crowther, 37, of Carman Close, Stratton, pleaded guilty to having indecent images of children and handling stolen goods and was jailed for a year at Swindon Crown Court earlier this week.

Crowther may never be released because he was on life licence at the time, having been convicted of attempted murder.

In the unusual break-in suffered by Mr Parker, a jar of coffee, iPad, laptop and a number of watches were taken, but there was no sign of forced entry.

All the memory sticks and SD cards in the house were also stolen, including treasured family photographs of his wife, Michelle, and their three children.

With his phone still linked to the search history on his laptop, Warren did some digging and was faced with horrific scenes of child sexual abuse, which Crowther had downloaded from a Russian website.

“The police said it was a really strange burglary and nothing they had come across before,” said Warren.

“The first officer said it seemed someone had been there before and knew their way around, because there was no sign of forced entry.

“First of all, I went on my Apple account and switched the tracking on from my iPad. That gave us a pinpoint of where the person was who had it.

“Five minutes later, I had a phone call from someone, who started saying he had bought it on Commercial Road, and we could have it back if we gave him £80.

“The police went and recovered it, and the next morning we went into our Google account, which was still logged on to the laptop. Then we could see what was being searched for. By logging on we got an IP address that wasn’t mine.

“We gave everything to the police, and we could even see what internet provider he was using.”

Within four days of the burglary, police had made three arrests, including Crowther.

“He is the sort of person who should be locked away for a very long time,” said Warren.

“I was horrified that these sort of people had completely innocent pictures of our children and our family. Luckily for us the police made the arrests very quickly and could stop anything from happening to them.”

Mrs Parker, 37, a former trustee at a charity for adult victims of sexual abuse, said Crowther had got tangled up with the wrong family.

“We realised he had been into the dark web, where paedophile rings use encryption to exchange indecent images of children,” she said.

“As parents ourselves it was disgusting and made us sick to our stomachs.

“We were presented with a load of obscene images of children being abused. It was a website where they can exchange some disgusting photographs, and we contacted the justice minister who said the government are aware of the site.”

Michelle added that their children, aged two, five and 15, had been at risk as it emerged Crowther not only had photographs of them but lived within sight of their home. The family have since moved house.

“As loving parents we have done everything we can to ensure our children are safe at all times,” she said.

“We have been violated by this person who bowled in to our home and took our memories. When it comes to your own children it doesn’t bear thinking about. The worst part was when we found out he lived right behind us at the time.

“Before I knew what he had done, I actually felt some pity for him, wondering what he must have been through. But he has messed with the wrong family.

"I have got a superhero husband here, and when it comes to our family being safe we take it very seriously.”