CONVICTED rapist Trevor Masters is to be extradited back to the UK after a court hearing in France.

Masters, from Kington, was sentenced to 12 years by a judge at Cardiff Crown Court, absconded last year before the jury had returned their verdicts on a series of sexual and violent assaults.

He was eventually traced by Interpol to the town of Pau in the French Pyrenees and extradition proceedings began.

At five-minute court hearing last Friday, Masters was told that extradition would go ahead.

The chair of the Magistrates Monsieur Henri Suquet told Masters he could appeal to the Cours de Cassation in Paris, but if he didn't appeal, or if the appeal was turned down, the French government would take the decree to extradite.

That process, he said, would take two to three months.