UPDATED 5.46PM: Facebook fugitive Alvone Maybury has this afternoon been sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in jail for carrying out a shooting and escaping from custody.

Maybury, 24, fired at gang rivals on a Hamilton street just before Christmas last year. When he was brought to court in July to be charged with that crime, he escaped from prison guards.

Maybury hit international headlines after posting messages on his Facebook page taunting the authorities during his two weeks on the run. He was eventually found hiding in a garden shed.

Sentencing him this afternoon, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said: “In the current environment in Bermuda it is my view that these courts must seriously seek to deter those who have found it fit to arm themselves, despite all the pleadings, with firearms, and go about the process of terrorising this society.”

In a statement this afternoon, Detective Chief Inspector Nicholas Pedro, the officer in Charge of the Serious Crime Unit said: “The Bermuda Police Service would again like to acknowledge the sentence of the courts today in the matter regarding Alvone Maybury.

“Maybury was unanimously convicted by a jury of discharging a firearm in a busy city street, in the lead up to Christmas last year. He was sentenced to a total of thirteen-and-a-half years imprisonment.

“Bermudian society has been rocked in recent months by a plague of gun violence perpetrated by persons who have displayed a flagrant disregard for life, law, and order. The recent convictions and sentences of the courts for persons convicted of gun and violent crimes, including this case, are intended to protect society from these offenders, and also hopefully serve as a deterrent to those contemplating engaging in these acts of senseless violence.

“The Bermuda Police Service wishes to thank all of the persons who have assisted by providing information and giving evidence in this and other cases that clearly has enabled the course of justice to prevail. It clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when the community comes forward to assist Police investigations and the Director of Public Prosecutions in mounting successful prosecutions against violent offenders."

For more on this see tomorrow’s Royal Gazette