Escapee conceived child with girlfriend while on the run, lawyers say

Jacob MacDonald, 21, and another inmate Patrick McCurley, 28, made headlines when they used a cable tray to scale three fences at Canberra's Alexander Maconochie Centre on September 2 last year.

The pair had first climbed out a window of their accommodation before finding the cable tray behind the kitchen and industries area.

Court documents said security cameras had captured the pair fleeing the grounds of the Hume prison, towards the Monaro Highway.

It took six hours for their absence to be realised.

But it was not until some eight days later when MacDonald was arrested at a home in Narrabundah. He later pleaded guilty in court to one charge of escape.

MacDonald faced a sentencing hearing in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, when it emerged that the 21-year-old and his girlfriend were now expecting a child. The man's defence barrister, James Sabharwal, said the child was due in May.

Apart from the escape charge, MacDonald faces several charges relating to burglary and property damage to which he has also pleaded guilty.

MacDonald's co-accused was sentenced in the ACT Magistrates Court last year. McCurley had been recaptured about 48 hours after the pair's escape when he crashed his car.

He had also pleaded guilty, and was sentenced in November to eighteen months in prison for the escape, of a total of 36 months for a series of other offences before he was detained in custody and while he was on the run. The sentence is being appealed.

MacDonald's case will return to court on February 15, when Justice John Burns of the ACT Supreme Court will hand down a sentence.