ALLEGED child smuggler John Boast has been released after spending four months in a squalid jail.

But the self-styled aid worker from Great Harwood will still face a host of smuggling charges in a Romanian court next week.

Boast, 46, was released under legal supervision by a court in the North West town of Oradea yesterday afternoon.

The move has raised hopes that the aid worker could be winning the fight to clear his name.

In January, Romanian authorities accused Boast of helping to take a 15-month-old girl out of the country in July 1995. He has been prison in Oradea since May, when he was accused of buying another young girl from a gypsy for £40 and taking her out of the country and being involved in her illegal adoption. His friends and family have feared the authorities were trying to prove he was the Mr Big behind a baby smuggling network and he could be given a long prison sentence if found guilty.

He has been kept in a local jail notorious for its poor conditions but has managed to keep his spirits up and was visited by his brother Andrew in August.

His trial has been repeatedly adjourned by the court in Oradea but he is due to appear again next Friday.

A spokesman for the British Embassy in Romania said today: "We have been informed that John Boast was released on bail on Friday afternoon but we have no other details at this stage."

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