YORK’S most wanted criminal, who was arrested last weekend after being on the run for more than a year, is finally behind bars.

Alfred Philip Dear (Snr), 46, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on Monday to a three-month consecutive jail term - on top of the 21-year sentence he had already been ordered to serve.

It comes after he was found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs in October 2018.

Dear (Snr), who has connections in York and Hull, failed to attend Leeds Crown Court in October 2018, where he was due to be sentenced in connection with drug offences.

He was part of a group that supplied heroin and Class A drugs into York and skipped bail partway through his trial at Leeds Crown Court in October 2018.

North Yorkshire Police initially appealed for information on his whereabouts in November 2018.

Following a nationwide search and the offer of a £5,000 reward issued by police, he was arrested in Swaffham, a village near Norfolk, by a police constable last Saturday.

In December 2018, The Press reported that Dear (Snr) was one of 11 members of a crime syndicate responsible for a huge heroin operation in York and Malton.

The gang was jailed for a total of 102 years and six months between them.

The family-run enterprise, which was headed by Alfred Philip Dear and his three sons, had a turnover of tens of thousands of pounds a month, Leeds Crown Court heard at the time.

Two of Alfred Philip Dear’s sons - Alfred Dear, 26, and Levi Dear, 24 - are currently serving 12-year sentences alongside eight other jailed gang members.

The third son involved in the gang, Callum Dear, died before he could be charged.

Six police officers and civilians won a judge’s commendation for bringing them to justice.

Judge Rodney Jameson QC said that by June 2016 Alfred Philip Dear was bringing a kilo of heroin every three weeks into York. He said: “The father was on prison parole from a previous sentence for dealing and had used his experience to equip his new operation with anti-detection techniques. He involved others and most shamefully, his sons.”