AID worker John Boast has admitted smuggling children out of trouble-torn Romania.

But he insisted: "I only did what any man with compassion would do."

The former Great Harwood businessman admitted he was looking over his shoulder and feared re-arrest after prosecutors appealed against a 20-month suspended prison sentence handed out by a judge in Oradea last week.

Mr Boast, who was first arrested in January last year, was found guilty of taking two children out of the country and has already spent several months behind bars.

He now fears he will be kept in the country for up to two years, or even re-arrested and sent back to prison, while the prosecution apply for him to be thrown out of the country.

Throughout his trial, Mr Boast always insisted he had done nothing wrong and was praised for his work in Romania by the judge.

In a telephone call to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph Mr Boast said: "I have never said I didn't take these children out. I just said I didn't believe I had committed an offence or done anything wrong. "I didn't do it for money. I stood the cost of taking them out, although I have been helped by a number of people and found ways of funding it.

"The alternative was to let them stay where they were and deteriorate into mental oblivion.

"To adopt these children legally would take at least two years and the payment of large amounts of money to corrupt officials.

"And by the time it has taken place the child has either got AIDS from shared needles at the hospital or is so handicapped that it is a waste of time taking it.

"If you were a parent who could not afford to keep your child and saw it being neglected in one of these orphanages, if somebody came along and gave it a chance would you be upset or happy?

"It happens a thousand times a day here. I defy any man to see what I have seen and to walk away. "The only chance they have is to get out. I had an opportunity to do something about it for a few and I did what any man with compassion would do.

"I knew I could pull it off. They never caught me. All this trial has come from gossip."

Mr Boast hopes the prosecution can be persuaded to drop its appeal and expects his position could become clearer after a meeting on Friday.

He said: "I am looking over my shoulder all the time waiting to be arrested. If the police over here think the judge and the courts haven't done their job properly then they arrest you.

"I could be kept here waiting for the appeal and then discover they just decide to throw me out of the country.

"I am exploring all my options at the moment and we are trying to get them to withdraw their appeal.

"I have gone from elation at the judge's decision to being thoroughly cheesed off with the realisation I might still only be at the half-way stage in all this."

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