Qatada moves to secret address after demos outside home

Following protests outside his supposedly secret front door, the radical Muslim cleric, Abu Qatada, has been granted his request for a new home by the Home Office, just two days after his release from prison. He will leave his £400,000 house in Wembley, north London, the rent paid by the taxpayer, for a secret address.

In a statement, his barrister Edward Fitzgerald QC said: "The family are going to relocate and therefore Mr Qatada would accept the Home Office-approved accommodation."

He refused to say where Qatada will be living but confirmed the cleric and his family had asked to be relocated. Qatada is wanted in relation to terrorism offences in his home country, Jordan, and is often described as al-Qa'ida's "right-hand man in Europe".

On Tuesday a judge ruled he could neither be permanently imprisoned nor extradited to Jordan, because there was a risk that evidence obtained there under torture could be used against him. Home Secretary Theresa May, pictured, had tried to get him deported.

But when he was released under bail from prison and taken home to Wembley, protesters had rallied outside his front door, waving placards reading "Get Rid of Abu Qatada". He is allowed to leave his house between the hours of 8am and 4pm, and is under 24-hour police surveillance, estimated to cost around £5m a year.

With such restrictions in place, getting stuck in traffic must be particularly irksome, which perhaps explains the L-plated motorbike parked outside his current address yesterday. A cursory stroll past his front door suggests that taxpayers might actually be getting decent value for money for their £5m outlay. Marked police cars drive past at least every three minutes. Other officers, on foot, walk past the entrance but do not stop outside. "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" tape hangs from a nearby lamp post.

When i arrived yesterday afternoon, a white transit van with a man and two women sat in the front was parked outside. Twenty minutes later, all three had been replaced by a solitary gent in a beanie hat. Coincidence? Possibly.

Qatada's presence there has provoked considerable ire for a myriad of reasons. Some simply do not want a man they consider to be a terrorist living among them. "We know he's here, we don't want him here," one business owner said. But another resident said: "Do I think he should be here? I don't know," he told i, declining to give his name.

"It's so complicated isn't it. I've tried to understand it all, I've been reading about it on the internet, but I don't understand. I could say yeah I don't want him here, take him away, but if he is a threat to this country, maybe it's good he's sat in the house and we're keeping an eye on him. Better than him being abroad, doing who knows what."