A FORMER Bournemouth taxi driver has been jailed for nine years with hard labour for abusing orphaned children.

Pervert David Allen was convicted in Ethiopia of abusing young boys in his care at a charity refuge centre.

The 62-year-old, previously known as David Christie, was at the centre of an international paedophile ring that used charities and aid agencies to gain access to children.

His trial ended in October 2001 but was postponed on several occasions due to his poor health.

The Foreign Office confirmed Allen had been found guilty of 14 offences of abusing boys under 15 and procuring boys for his friends. "He was sentenced to nine years from the date he first entered prison, nearly two years ago," a spokesman said.

Allen was sacked by the agency Terre des Hommes Lausanne in 1997 after admitting an "improper sexual relationship" with one of the 300 children in his care at a village he had set up to house orphans of the Ethiopian famine.

Other children in the village also made allegations of abuse.

The high court in Addis Ababa said Allen had also arranged for five boys to be abused by two of his friends, one of them a Briton.

The court declared that twisted Allen had abused boys daily for several weeks at a time, luring them by giving them sweets and promises of an education abroad.

The three-judge tribunal "categorically rejected" Allen's request that he be allowed to serve his sentence in Britain.

His lawyer said Allen was likely be released from prison on good behaviour in 2007 and that he would appeal against his conviction.

Det Supt Peter Spindler, of Scotland Yard's child protection group, which monitored Allen's movements in the UK, said: "This sentence sends out a strong message to any British paedophile who chooses to go and offend in countries where they think they are out of our grasp. They are not."