A "career criminal" who escaped from the Adelaide Remand Centre to get methamphetamine by creating a makeshift rope to scale the building has been sentenced to 15 years for his escape and crime spree.
Jason Gregory Burdon, 34, stacked two milk crates on top of each other inside a toilet in the prison in December 2020, broke into the ceiling and then forced out metal air vents on the external wall, using a chef's shirt as a makeshift rope to scale down the building and escape.
The father-of-two was arrested two days later.
During sentencing in the District Court today, Judge Simon Stretton said Burdon had escaped from custody twice before.
"This is a particularly serious example of escaping from legal custody given the very serious offending for which you were on remand and that you escaped by physically breaking out of a prison," he said.
Burdon was in custody at the time for breaching his bail and committing a spate of offences in the months prior.
Four months earlier, in August 2020, Burdon was released on home-detention bail without electronic monitoring.
While on bail, he broke into dozens of homes across Adelaide and regional South Australia between September and November 2020, stealing thousands of items, including cars, number plates, jewellery, passports and handbags.
He also assaulted several people.
Burdon was eventually arrested in a roof cavity at Mawson Lakes where police found hundreds of items of the stolen property and remanded in the Adelaide Remand Centre.
"For obvious reasons, it's inappropriate to give you any credit for the time you have spent on home detention bail," Judge Stretton said during sentencing.
"Considering that you entirely ignored the requirement to be at home and utilised the time predominantly, if not wholly, for the purposes of committing further serious crime.
"In many cases violating the sanctity of their home and causing them to lose items of great financial and/or sentimental value.
"Your offending continued unabated the moment you were released on bail and did not even conclude the second time you were arrested with you breaking out of the Adelaide Remand Centre in a pre-mediated way… wanting to get methamphetamine."
Remorseful letter similar to others he used
Judge Stretton said Burdon had been before the courts several times but it had not deterred him from "immediately reoffending on release".
He said Burdon had written a letter to the court expressing his remorse and providing insight into his offending but Judge Stretton said it was a similar letter to ones sent to previous sentencing judges and magistrates.
"Whilst the court hopes the sentiments are sincere, they are entirely contradicted by your conduct," he said.
"You've taken no meaningful steps to address your addiction."
Judge Stretton said if each offence was sentenced separately it would equate to more than 45 years in prison.
"Whilst in many ways this accurately reflects the criminality of your offending and the pain, misery and loss you've callously inflicted on a large amount of people, significant degree of concurrency is appropriate," he said.
"However, even allowing for concurrency … the resulting sentence would still, in the court's view, be crushing and leave little scope for rehabilitation."
Judge Stretton sentenced Burdon to 15 years in prison with a non-parole period of 12 years backdated to when he was taken into custody.
