Police have allowed a man accused of child sex abuse to return to a house next to a primary school, just a week after they removed him on “safety” grounds.
Northamptonshire’s force has yet to explain why it moved Verners Ricards Miklavs back to the address a day before his lawyers were due to apply to court to allow his return.
District Judge John McGarva approved the return on March 20 on bail terms he was previously under.
On March 13, police moved Miklavs to a hotel, before the National Crime Agency made a retrospective bail variation application.
It was approved the next day at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after it heard concerns from the force his proximity to the school posed potential child safeguarding issues.
The action was taken after “horrified” Tory MP Philip Hollobone was alerted by the Sunday Express.
The Kettering MP then contacted Stephen Mold, Northamptonshire Police and Crime Commissioner.
Mr Mold took swift action by contacting his officers, who moved Miklavs the same day and paid for him to stay at the Holiday Inn Express in the town from March 13.
He has vowed to get to the bottom of the U-turn and thanked this newspaper for raising it.
Miklavs, who is fighting extradition to Latvia, is alleged to have seriously sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl in 2018 and allegedly raped a second girl, aged 10, in 2019, accusations he vehemently denies.
After moving him into the hotel, police said he should remain there until a more suitable permanent address could be found.
But he is now back at the home of his mother and stepfather next to the school.
His bail conditions include an electronically monitored curfew to stay inside from 7.30am to 9am and 3pm to 7pm.
He is also banned from any school grounds and from contact with females under 18.
The court has refused to confirm why his return was allowed in the face of concerns raised by police, the NCA and the CPS, which argued that he should be remanded in custody.
At the last hearing neither the CPS, police or NCA objected to Miklavs’s return, with each saying his bail is “a matter for the court”.
A Northamptonshire Police spokesman said: “We continue to monitor this individual, and we take the safety of our communities very seriously.”
A CPS spokesperson said: “We applied three times for this individual to be remanded in custody and were unsuccessful. There was no legal route for us to object to this move.”
Miklavs’s extradition case will resume in July.
