A MAN who was standing trial for sexually abusing orphans in Albania alongside a Blackburn charity worker has been jailed for 20 years.

David Brown, 57, a charity worker from Edinburgh, was convicted of “sexual relations with minors”.

Dino Christodoulou, 45, an aid worker from Blackburn, is facing charges that he abused eight boys in an Albanian orphanage in the country’s capital Tirana in 2004.

He is facing trial in a separate court, which is due to finish next month.

Christodoulou’s friends have said they were positive that Brown's conviction would not affect Christodoulou’s chances of 'clearing his name'.

Christodoulou’s friend Damian Wild, of Whitby Drive, Blackburn, has spoken to him regularly since he was extradited last year.

Mr Wild said: “We think the hearing is going well. There have been three so-called victims heard so far and all admitted Dino did not abuse them.

“Brown’s sentence is very strong but we don’t think it will affect Dino. He has always said he knows nothing about any abuse at the orphanage and we are sure he is innocent.”

Brown ran a Christian missionary orphanage for abandoned street children in Tirana seven years ago.

He was charged along with two helpers at the home, Christodoulou and Robin Arnold, 56, a salesman from Cromer in Norfolk. They were both extradited to Albania in May and both remain on trial.

Brown was arrested in May 2006, following a raid on the orphanage.

Sentencing him to the maximum sentence in a high security jail in Albania, the judge said he hoped the punishment would serve as a warning to other paedophiles.

Christodoulou’s hearing is taking place once every two weeks in a closed court in Tirana.

The latest hearing was cancelled on Tuesday and there are expected to be at least two more court dates before a verdict is given.

He is facing charges that he abused eight boys in the orphanage.