PERVERTS from England are flocking to Romania to sexually abuse starving young street children, a horrified Bolton visitor claims.

Paul Lacey, 32, who has been staying with his penfriend in the small Northern Romanian town of Bistrita, says he was "devastated" to discover the streets were havens for perverts from Western Europe.

Now he is to ask British charities to help stop the evil.

The father of three, who returned home to Cheriton Gardens, Horwich this week, also claims drugs paid for by EC funds to treat children are being sold off instead by GPs to private patients.

He says corruption is rife and warns people planning to travel to Romania to beware of a "well known taxi racket" in which tourists are kidnapped by bogus operators. Drivers pick up visitors at airports, and then rob, torture and even kill them for their money and identification papers. Paul told the BEN : "No one in our town of Bolton could imagine what I have seen here.

"In England, to be an orphan is a luxury compared to the fate of these little children here.

"Primary school age children are starving and sleeping on the streets. No one cares for them.

"In Bucharest these vulnerable children are being picked up and abused by paedophiles who visit Romania to take advantage of the situation.

"I saw children openly walking the streets covered in bruises."

He claims many of the paedophiles are English.

"We all need to stop this. It is an insult to the British people that such types show their faces here and abuse these children," he added.

"Living standards for most Romanian families are equivalent to unemployed Western families. But for the orphans, it is poverty and despair."

He said: "It is so hard to describe how badly treated these children are. I did not seen one Western charity helping them. The children are dying so innocent and so young. "This message goes to all in our area - please help these children and ask charities what they are doing to help, because I saw them do nothing." Paul also described a shocking incident he witnessed first hand.

He said: "My friend and I were sitting at the tables outside a restaurant - as good as any in Europe - when a little child of about eight or 10 years came over to the table bowing, and asking in his language for help.

"It was a passionate and desperate cry for help. He made the sign of a cross and looked so sad and innocent in his old rags. But a policeman pulled him out of the restaurant and put him on the street. Romanians sitting nearby were laughing at him.

"I asked my friend to tell me what the child had said and he replied that he had told him that he had not eaten for two days, he had no parents and no home. But he then said that these children are many here.

"The child was across the street in absolute distress.

"I told my friend I wanted to help the boy but I did not want to approach the child as a foreigner.

"The boy sneaked back past the policeman and into the restaurant. He was so distressed.

"Floods of tears came from his eyes and when he came near the table I passed him what amounted to only £2, but is enough to feed him for two days."

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