An Adelaide court has heard a man who escaped from the Adelaide Remand Centre by using clothes as a makeshift rope to scale down the building has a “very lengthy criminal history”.
Key points:
- Jason Burdon robbed a man of his car in May 2019
- He escaped from prison in December 2020
- The judge in his carjacking case has described him as a serious repeat offender
Jason Gregory Burdon, 33, was found guilty in the District Court earlier this year of robbery following a violent carjacking in Clarence Gardens in May 2019 that the court heard fractured several bones in the victim’s face.
Burdon was arrested after a roof-top standoff with police.
It was this crime he was in custody for when he escaped from the Adelaide Remand Centre in December.
During sentencing submissions for the robbery, Judge Simon Stretton said some of Burdon’s offences “could only be categorised as a crime spree”.
“There has just been relentless continual offending … constantly breaking into places, constantly stealing, constantly breaching bonds,” he said.
“There comes a point, unfortunately, when a person is a serious repeat offender that the law… says, ‘well enough is enough, you can’t expect to receive a short non-parole period because the community simply has to be protected.'”
ABC News: Michael Clements
)Victim’s ‘shock, fear and grief’
Prosecutor Karen Ingleton asked for Burdon to be sentenced as a serious repeat offender as he had “a very lengthy criminal history”.
In a victim impact statement Ms Ingleton read to the court, the victim said he had struggled to feel happy since the robbery.
“I used to go out of my way to help people who was [sic] in need and feel really good about myself after I had helped them.
“Since the bashing, all of that has changed — my friends tell me not to stop and help strangers.”
The electronics repairman told the court his work had suffered as he experienced regular headaches as a result of the fractures he sustained between his eyes and cheekbones.
Burdon has also pleaded guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court to his 30-hour escape from the Adelaide Remand Centre in December but not guilty to resisting arrest.
Burdon’s lawyer, Greg Tonkin, told the court Burdon had been in solitary confinement since the escape and it had been difficult to get instructions from him.
Sentencing submissions will continue later this month and Burdon will be sentenced at a later date.
