A MAN who fled abroad to avoid British justice four years ago is today serving a prison sentence in a British jail.

Alexandru Nica was arrested in Romania within days of the birth of his twin sons, held in custody and extradited back to the UK, his barrister Anna Bond told York Crown Court.

Joe Culley, prosecuting, said Nica, now 31, failed to appear before the English court in August 2017 to answer for three street assaults that left one man with two black eyes, another unconscious with a mouth wound and a third with a sore leg.

He was extradited to England on August 29, 2021. A second Romanian charged with him is still on the run.

Ms Bond said Nica had wanted to care for his father who had dementia.

But Judge Simon Hickey rejected that explanation, saying Nica had deliberately left the country to avoid justice.

Nica, 31, now of no fixed address in the UK, pleaded guilty to three charges of causing actual bodily harm and was jailed for 12 months.

Mr Culley said the two Romanians were talking with two women on a bench in Scarborough town centre at 4am on May 27, 2017, when three men who had encountered the women earlier in the evening walked past.

The trio claimed the women were being “harassed” by the Romanians and an argument broke out which culminated in a street brawl.

After watching CCTV of the incident, the judge said: “It was six of one and half a dozen of the other aggravated by them (the Romanians) going over the top in what they did,”

The third victim appeared to have been goading the Romanians. The man still on the run appeared to have started the punching. Afterwards the Romanians had claimed they had suffered racial abuse.

Ms Bond said Nica was "desperate" to return to his family .