A SOON-to-be father who was falsely accused of being a paedophile has described the devastation and hurt it has caused to him and his family.

Scott Brown, aged 27, from Brynmawr, had returned from a day shopping for a pram with his pregnant partner when he arrived home to see a Facebook post attaching his photo to an article detailing a court case of a convicted paedophile.

The defendant shared the same name as Mr Brown and was also from Brynmawr.

The South Wales Argus published a story about the court case on Tuesday afternoon with no photo of the defendant, but within hours pictures show the story also appeared on UK Database, with a picture of the innocent Mr Brown.

The creator of UK Database denies the photo was published on his website, but screenshots of the picture on the website suggest otherwise.

Mr Brown said: “They’ve put two and two together and come up with 10. I couldn’t believe it when I came home and saw it.

“We’d put a post up about how great our day had been getting stuff for the baby, and people started commenting on it with a photo of me on this website.

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“Within minutes it seemed to have reached God knows how many. I was even getting messages from Ireland.

“I just didn’t believe it. I kept thinking it was a virus and deleting it, but then more and more comments and messages started to come. It was just sheer panic.

“I’ve not often seen my father as upset as he has been since then, my sister has had to take time off work, my partner is distraught.”

Mr Brown says the photo was removed from the article at around 7pm, but the damage for him and his family had already been done.

He said he is yet to receive an apology from the website, and has called for members of the public taking it upon themselves to name and shame defendants to think before they publish.

“Please take the time to check you have the right person,” he added.

“It would have been obvious with a bit more searching that it wasn’t me.

“For a long time I will be tarnished with the label ‘the guy who was falsely accused’, and it’s unfair.”

Mr Brown thanked members of his community in Brynmawr for their support.

The founder of UK Database has said that while screenshots from Mr Brown suggest UK Database published the photo, he did not upload the picture and doesn't know how it appeared there.

The photograph has since been removed from the website and the story carries an update explaining the wrong photograph was published.

He said: "It was not us that did that, but instead a fake page which is still up and running on Facebook.

"I am devastated that an innocent person has been shown, but we have named over 80,000 convicted sex offenders on our website which we started over a decade ago, and have never shown an innocent person."