A 50-year-old burglar was jailed yesterday for breaking into the home of a CID chief while he and his wife and two children were asleep.

“It’s unclear whether you deliberately targeted this house because Iestyn Davies was a police officer,” remarked Judge Huw Rees at Caernarfon crown court when he sent Gethin Williams to prison for three years and ten months.

Det Supt Davies of North Wales police and his wife, son and daughter, had been awoken at 6am by the cries of their puppy and came downstairs at their countryside home to discover that property worth about £4,000 had been taken, said Anna Pope, prosecuting. It included a laptop containing the daughter’s university work, which was retrieved later.

Food from their fridge had been eaten, a mess left in their kitchen and a security light had been disabled. Even the superintendent’s sandwiches for lunchtime had been taken.

Miss Pope said Williams had been staying in a camper van at a new age traveller site in north west Wales from which stolen property was recovered, including the laptop, optometry equipment, clothing, cash, handbags and purses and items taken from two cars parked outside.

Miss Pope said outside the camper van was a wheelbarrow belonging to the family, in which there was a “burglar’s kit” including gloves and tools. Everything had been recovered apart from £50 cash.

The same night Williams, formerly of Waenfawr, Caernarfon, stole from unlocked cars on a caravan site, including a drone worth £633 belonging to a holidaymaker..

When he was interviewed he became aggressive and argumentative, referring to the occupants of the house as pigs. “He made clear his hatred and distain of the police and presented as amused at what happened,” declared Miss Pope.

In an impact statement Supt Davies, a policeman for 30 years, said he would not forget the distraught look on the face of his daughter when she realised her laptop had been stolen. His family was resilient but what happened had a profound effect on their feelings of security.

Paulinus Barnes, defending, said Williams accepted involvement but denied emphatically that the house was targeted because it was a police officer’s. According to Williams it was opportunistic rather than planned and he wished to apologise to the family. “He feels terrible about what he’s done,” he commented.

Williams pleaded guilty to the burglary, to three thefts from cars that night and to two charges of criminal damage, including to a police car.

Judge Rees told Williams he’d caused great distress, particularly to the daughter whose university progress could have been affected by the loss of the laptop.

He added : “In your police interview you made unnecessary and derogatory comments about Iestyn Davies and the police in general. You are 50 with a long list of previous convictions for offences mainly of dishonesty. “ A family’s home had been ransacked and soiled and there had been a significant degree of planning, and there was evidence that the burglary had been committed when he was under the influence of drugs.

Imposing a ten year restraining order not to contact the family and not to be within 400 yards of their home the judge said : “You have been for a long time a thoroughly dishonest man.”

Earlier this week a second man was cleared of involvement by a jury.