A reformed drug addict who escaped from a drug rehabilitation facility and committed theft from a Paceville aparthotel was sentenced yesterday to 15 months in jail.

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit also made a recommendation to the prison authorities to do their utmost to ensure that the progress he had registered so far was not lost.

Oivend Xuereb, 30, escaped from a court-imposed, Caritas-run rehabilitation programme just one week before it was meant to end. He had been registering “very good progress”, the court heard.

Mr Xuereb had been in the Prison Inmates Programme for 10 months and had never given them any trouble

Fleur Bianco, from the Prison Inmates Programme, testified that Mr Xuereb had been following the programme for 10 months and had never given them any trouble. He had also found full-time employment while following the programme and no complaints had ever been received from his employer.

At the beginning of the week when he escaped, she had informed Mr Xuereb that he had successfully completed the programme and was being sent to jail to continue serving his time. She said he would have had to stop working and lose any privileges given to him while following the programme. “Maybe it was this that made him escape,” she said.

“I saw a big change in him. The programme is usually eight months long but if we see that people are promising, we extend the programme by two months and [Mr] Oivend was completing his 10th month,” Ms Bianco said.