Workers at a Trowbridge mobile phone company played their part in an international police operation to track down a runaway 12-year-old girl.

Staff at Virgin Mobile, on the White Horse Business Park, were tasked with helping police track down the mobile telephone of schoolgirl Shevaun Pennington, who ran off with 31-year-old US Marine Toby Studabaker.

Staff based at the mobile phone firm, whose headquarters are based on the White Horse Business Park, were able to help out in the high-profile operation by tracing Shevaun's mobile phone to a location in Germany.

Virgin Mobile spokesman Steven Day said exact details of how staff pinpointed the mobile phone would not be released for operational and security reasons but he confirmed the girl's phone had been traced through the network.

Mobile phone companies are inundated with thousands of requests for help made by police on a weekly basis. Under normal circumstances employees have no idea what purpose the data will be used for, but because news of Shevaun's disappearance hit the national headlines, Trow-bridge workers were well aware of what they were being asked to do.

Mr Day said the company was delighted the 12-year-old had been reunited with her parents at the family home in Leigh, Greater Manchester.

"Virgin Mobile was pleased we could help with police inquiries," he said.

Schoolgirl Shevaun went missing on July 12 when she met up with demobbed marine Studabaker at Manchester Airport, sparking a five-day hunt involving police from Britain, the USA, Germany and France.

The US Marine, arrested in Frankfurt, is due to be extradited from Germany and flown back to the UK to face abduction charges. Shevaun met the disgraced marine in an internet chatroom, spending up to 11 hours on her computer at a time.

Wiltshire police have used the case to issue a series of warnings to parents about the dangers of internet chatrooms.

Det Insp Paul Ginger, of the constabulary's computer crime unit, based in Devizes, said: "I wouldn't criticise the parents in this case but I would say did they really know what was going on during their daughter's 11-hour sessions on the internet?

"Parents should ask children what they are doing on the internet, but it should not be interrogative. Parents have to take an interest in what their children are doing.

"The advice is never give your name, age, gender or address out in a chat room. You don't know who you are talking to."

Wiltshire's computer crime unit has trebled its staff in the space of three years. Today three permanent and three part-time staff work in the unit compared to just two staff members in 2000.