Blackburn man extradited to Albania to face sex abuse charges (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Blackburn man extradited to Albania to face sex abuse charges

10:22pm Monday 19th May 2008

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AN East Lancashire charity worker has arrived in Albania after being extradited to face allegations that he sexually abused orphans.

Dino Christodoulou, 44, from Blackburn, faces 20 years in jail if convicted of the charges.

Friends in East Lancashire involved in a 'Dino is innocent' campaign have pledged to continue standing by the former social therapy nurse.

In March City of Westminster Magistrates' Court ruled that Christodoulou should be extradited to face the charges.

The Home Office said Albanian officials took him into custody on Friday and he arrived in the country's capital Tirana on Saturday.

Christodoulou was arrested last October following an investigation launched in 2006 after allegations made by six orphans aged between six and 13.

He and Robin Arnold, 55, of Norfolk, were working as helpers at the His Children' refuge in Tirana, where it is alleged they molested orpans in 2004.

A third man, David Brown, 56, formerly of Edinburgh, who is said to have set up the home, is already being held in Albania awaiting the court case.

Christodoulou was heralded as a charity champion after helping a number of causes in the 1990s.

In 1996, he won a bravery award for disarming a gunman who shot a woman in the stomach.

Six years later he left for Albania, telling the Lancashire Telegraph he was "on a mission to help the needy in Eastern Europe".

He quit his job at the former Queen's Park Hospital and sold his possessions to help orpans and those living on the streets'.

It has been reported that the orpanage had up to 50 children who slept up to eight in a bed in squalid conditions. It has since been closed down, according to the Albanian media.

Since Christodoulou's arrest he has received a lot of support in East Lancashire.

Respected boss of the Much Hoole-based International Aid Trust Rev Bernard Cocker said he would "stake his life on Dino being innocent". He said he was an "inspiration and encouragement to all who met him".

Rev Cocker could not be contacted for comment yesterday, but Christodoulou's friend Gerald Norcross, pastor at Colne Gospel Fellowship and chair of Colne Churches Together, said: "I am very disappointed in what has happened as I had been trying to get to see him in prison but had not been able to get through.

"I believe that Dino is 100 per cent innocent and I support anything that will give him his freedom back.

"I have known him for over 25 years and he is kind and well meaning. What he is accused of is inconceivable."

Another friend Damian Wild, 34, of Whitby Drive, Blackburn, said: "We have been trying to get him legal representation. I thought that he had at least another two weeks here.

"I believe Dino is innocent. When many of the things he is accused of are said to have happened he was not even in the country."

A spokesman for the Home Office confirmed that Christodoulou had been extradited on Friday .

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