Description
A "highly dangerous" sex offender who raped and assaulted two women and fled the country to try and evade justice has been jailed for 18 years.
Mircea Cicalo, 22, of no fixed abode, fled to Romania after he was arrested.
He was found through a European Arrest Warrant and extradited back to the UK, where he pleaded guilty to two rapes.
Cicalo carried out both his attacks in Luton in 2018 within three weeks of one another.
At around 6.40am on Saturday 13 October, a passer-by called the emergency services after finding a woman in her 40s with facial injuries in distress in a ditch in Cromwell Road.
The victim, who needed hospital treatment, had been seriously assaulted by Cicalo, who approached her in New Bedford Road before raping her and leaving her in the ditch.
Then, in the early hours of 2 November, a woman in her 20s reported being raped and beaten by a man who had engaged her in conversation as she walked through Luton town centre.
Responding officers arrested a man within minutes of her 999 call after CCTV operators tracked him leaving the scene, but in interview Cicalo claimed it was consensual intercourse and denied the assault.
He was bailed and officers continued the investigation.
As the investigation continued, in February 2019, Cicalos DNA profile was matched to the attack in October, but by this time he had fled the country and gone into hiding.
A European Arrest Warrant (EAW) was issued to aid the hunt for him, and in February 2021 he was extradited to the UK.