Judge jails drug addict for string of offences

A NICOSIA Court yesterday jailed a man from Anthoupolis after he pleaded guilty to 23 cases involving burglaries, assault and drug related offences.

Panayiotis Panayi, a.k.a. Panaoui, 25, was yesterday sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to over 50 charges.

He was also charged with common assault, assaulting a police and escaping from police custody.

On February 8, Panaoui had escaped from his police guard at Nicosia General Hospital where he had been taken complaining of stomach pains.

Doctors decided to keep him in overnight for observation, but the 25-year-old assaulted the officer guarding him and escaped in a pick-up truck parked at the hospital.

He was arrested the following day after being seen in a field close to his parents’ house.

Panaoui’s defence lawyer had previously told the court that his client “was not a criminal, but a sick person who had committed all of his crimes simply to fuel his drug habit”.

In total, Panaoui is believed to have stolen around £10,000 worth of property from houses and cars in burglaries dating back to 2004.

A welfare report on the defendant had shown that he was a heroin addict and had failed repeatedly to commit himself to any of the island’s drug rehabilitation clinics.

Jailing Panaoui yesterday, Judge Angelos David said that the defendant’s drug problems could not be used as a plea for mitigation, especially since “he had failed to stay faithful to detoxification programmes.”

The judge also noted that as “guardians of the law”, it was imperative that the courts make examples of defendants who break the law, especially in the fashion in which the defendant himself repeatedly did.

Panaoui thanked the judge after being sentenced while his parents and sister, who were present at court, slumped their heads and wept as he was led away by police officers.