EXCLUSIVE Pictured: Conspiracy theorist who was arrested after six British children found in cellar

This is the first picture of a man arrested by police after six British children were found living in an Austrian cellar.

Conspiracy theorist and alleged Holocaust denier Tom Landon, 54, was held after he attacked police and social workers who had come to question him with a pepper spray.

Landon’s 40-year-old British wife was also questioned by authorities and although both have since been released, their children all aged under five have been taken into care.

Officials said the couple had been living in a network of cellars beneath the remote village of Obritz, 60 miles north of the Austrian capital Vienna and closer to the border with the Czech Republic.

PICTURED: Tom Landon, who was arrested in Austria after six British children were found in an abandoned cellar 

The man was arrested after six British children were found living in an Austrian cellar beneath the remove village Obritz, 60 miles north of the Austrian capital Vienna. Pictured: The road where it is believed Landon had his cellars

Landon – who has self-published more than 20 books, is said to be a ‘prepper’ – a state of mind where a person prepares for a ‘major disaster or cataclysmic event’.

Titles include Red Sow, Dirty Justice, The Judas Principle and The Destructive Effect of Information Technology on Human Intellectual Development.

He is also said to be a Reichsburger, a group of right-wing extremists who believe the German empire still exists as it did prior to World War II and the current German state is insignificant.

Checks by MailOnline reveal Landon to be the director of several companies based in London and involved in information technology and book and software publishing.

He has also written a musical about the Austrian rock star Falco – known for his 1985 hit Rock Me Amadeus – and who died in a car crash in the Dominican Republic in 1998.

Pictured: A camera watching the cellar on a road where it is believed Tom Landon had brought six children 

Landon, who at the time was also living on the Caribbean island, claims to have found the body and that the singer’s true cause of death was covered up.

Austrian officials were tipped off about his erratic behaviour by worried neighbours and on Thursday attempted to question him but it is alleged that he reacted violently and attacked them.

Local mayor Erich Greil said: ‘There are cameras all over the outside of the buildings where he and his family and below are a series of wine cellars where it is said they were living.

‘Neighbours became worried because they heard children’s voices and so the police and social services were called.

Austrian officials were tipped off about his erratic behaviour by worried neighbours and on Thursday attempted to question him but it is alleged that he reacted violently and attacked them. Pictured: An entrance to one of the cellars 

‘Neighbours became worried because they heard children’s voices and so the police and social services were called’, the local mayor said

‘He hasn’t been here for very long and he said the building was bought by a British company. He said he had lived in England for a few years before moving to Obritz.’

Mr Greil also told local Austrian media that Landon had ‘wanted a cellar for each child’ and police are now tracing to records to find details on the children who were not registered in Austria.

A police source told MailOnline:’The man has been questioned and has now been released. Now with Interpol we are working to identify the children who we believe may have been born in the UK.

‘The man and his wife, who is British, had certainly lived in the UK and had connections there. The children have been taken into the care of local authorities temporarily.

‘The prosecutor has also been informed as the man attacked officers with pepper spray and he faces charges for that.’

There is no suggestion any of the children were sexually abused but it has drawn comparisons to the infamous case of Josef Fritzl, 87, who was jailed for life in 2009 after keeping his daughter Elizabeth in a cellar for 24 years.