The former principal of an NGO in Siem Reap was deported yesterday and arrested by London Metropolitan Police when he arrived in the UK.

Nicholas Griffin was arres-ted last October during a dawn raid in which more than 100 minors were rescued by police.

Griffin left Britain in 2006 and set up the NGO Cambodia Orphan Fund in Siem Reap a year later.

He was charged with sexual abuse of minors under his care and sentenced to a two-year prison term, of which he served only one year.

Sun Bun Thorng, of Siem Reap’s anti-human trafficking department, said he had received orders directly from Deputy Prime Minister Sor Kheng to deport Griffin.

“I didn’t know the reason why we have to deport Nick from Cambodia, but we deported him after we got a letter from the Deputy Prime Minister,” Sun Bun Thorng said.

He added that Griffin had previously been charged with child molestation in 2008, but those charges had been dropped because of  a lack of evidence.

Deportation was still not common for child sex offenders, Action Pour Les Enfants country director Seila Samleang told the Post yesterday.

“An NGO law would be good to somehow prevent pedophiles being able to run orphanages in Cambodia, and would be very helpful in this sense,” he said.