An Amazon delivery driver was at large for almost two years after failing to turn up for his trial at a London magistrates’ court.

Dukah Tocaciu, 44, was caught in a Vauxhall Meriva in Orpington, south east London, on August 4, 2018, by police who’d just seen him leaving a house. Police were called to help get the unwanted guest out the property.

When officers found him in his car he was surrounded by cans of beer. A breath test later found he had 121mcgs of alcohol in 100ml of breath, more than three times the legal limit of 35.

He had denied a charge of being drunk in charge of a vehicle. But when he failed to turn up to his trial at Bexley Magistrates’ Court in September 2018, the JPs found him guilty in his absence. He had been at large ever since.

Defending, Emma Thacker said her client had been homeless, sleeping in his car and told her he had at one point been sleeping rough in a forest. He had spent some time in hospital, but acknowledged he had not kept the court informed of his whereabouts.

Last month, he moved to Swindon in order to start a job with Amazon as a delivery driver.

He had no previous convictions and a clean driving licence.

Tocaciu, now of Ashbury Avenue, Nythe, pleaded guilty to failing to surrender to the court.

Magistrates fined him £865, ordered he pay £600 costs and an £87 victim surcharge and gave him 10 penalty points.

At the end of the hearing, Tocaciu asked through a Romanian interpreter: “I am free? Can I go to work now?”