Simon Cowell has admitted he still has nightmares about a burglary which took place at his home in 2015 - and has invested in a baseball bat to protect his family.
The music mogul's house was broken into in December 2015 and two passports and nearly £1 million worth of jewellery was stolen while he, his partner Lauren Silverman and their son, Eric, were asleep.
Cowell said that he had spent over £500,000 on upgrading security since the incident. He also said that some of the measures he had taken were not exactly hi-tech.
The burglar, Darren February, was sentenced in March to eight years for the raid, and was already serving time for knocking down and killing a motorcyclist only days after the break-in at Cowell's home.
Talent show judge Cowell told the Daily Mail, "Now that this guy is in prison, there is an incredible sense of relief.
"The whole experience has been pretty traumatising and not something I ever want to go through again.
"I've obviously had to massively increase my personal security at home with every mod con you can imagine, and all this stuff, including a panic room, my house basically looks like something out of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
"We called in these guys and one of the things they suggested was a baseball bat. I'm not even joking. So I literally have a baseball bat ready to go if anyone comes in."
The 57-year-old said, "What happened was utterly terrifying."
"It is almost irrelevant what he took - that is all just stuff. Jewellery, passports, none of that really matters," he added.
"What really got to me though was that this guy was walking about in my house when Eric was fast asleep - it doesn't bear thinking about what could have happened if he had gone into his bedroom, and found him," he said. "It is terrifying, and still gives me nightmares."
