AID worker John Boast has been charged with smuggling a second child out of Romania.

The new allegations come five months after he was first accused of illegally taking a young girl out of the troubled country.

Mr Boast, 47, is a former Great Harwood businessman and nightclub boss who began organising relief trips to help Romanian children in the early 1990s. In January, it was revealed that he had been accused of helping to take a 15-month old girl from an orphanage in the northern town of Oradea during last year.

The offence allegedly came to light after the girl was given to a couple from Leeds at a secret meeting on the M1.

Now officials at the British Embassy in Bucharest have been informed that Mr Boast has been charged with two further offences, relating to another girl who is almost two years old.

He is alleged to have helped take the girl out of the country illegally and also being involved in her illegal adoption.

The new offences are also said to have taken place during 1995.

Mr Boast is currently on trial for the first offence and is next due to appear in court on June 28.

He has been banned from leaving the country but is not in custody and is living in the village of Beius.

He has consistently denied any involvement in child smuggling but has said he fears being made a scapegoat and being sent to prison for up to five years. An Embassy spokesman said: "We have been officially informed that Mr Boast has been formally charged with two further offences.

"I presume that, since the other matter is already being dealt with, they will have to deal with these new matters separately but that is not certain.

"We have been in regular contact with Mr Boast's lawyer since these matters began."

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