A drug dealer who escaped prison during his seven-year sentence evaded police capture for almost a decade despite working at Oxford University under his own name.

Robert Fitzgerald, 38, was handed seven years and four months imprisonment in September 2014 for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs, namely cocaine, as a courier.

During the last 18 months of his sentence, Fitzgerald was transferred to HMP Ford in East Sussex which is an ‘open prison’ meaning inmates can leave on license.

READ MORE: Family concerned about missing teenage girl, 15

However, after ‘struggling with his mental health’ and the ‘pressures’ of incarceration, Fitzgerald left the prison by foot on November 8, 2015, without a licence.

He was finally arrested in August this year – despite working under his own name in Oxford, paying taxes, starting his own business, and having car insurance.

Sentencing Fitzgerald to six months imprisonment at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday (October 8), Judge Ian Pringle said: “It’s a slightly unusual offence.

“You decided you were missing your family and the pressure was getting to you. [The pressure] gets to everyone but you decided to escape.

READ MORE: Body of man reported missing one month ago found in woodlands

“I don’t think there was much degree of planning, it was easy as it was an open prison. You never hid your identity but I took nine years for the police to catch up with you.”

During sentencing, prosecutor Harpreet Bains said that Sussex Police launched a manhunt and a public appeal at the time but the case was paused in 2016.

Six years later, it was reopened and Fitzgerald was later located in Oxford after registering with an online service in December last year.

Defending Fizgerald, barrister Gordana Austen explained that there was ‘no violence, no damage, no climbing’ he had ‘simply walked out’.

“In custody, he was having some issues with some of the other prisoners and it all got on top of him,” she said. “On one occasion, he walked outside the prison.

“He did come back and he stood outside the prison for a while but he accepts he made a decision to turn around and walk away.”

She explained he has lived a normal life since fleeing, he worked at Oxford University as a builder and worked at the John Radcliffe Hospital through the coronavirus pandemic.

READ MORE: Scales of Justice: The latest cases from Oxford Magistrates' Court

He also has two young children.

“He knew that this day would come,” she said. “He knew that. He said he was struggling mentally and he had been thinking out surrendering during this period, it was more difficult when he had children.”

It is likely, due to early release, that Fizgerald will be released on licence next year.