diff --git a/src/Desc.cc b/src/Desc.cc
index 2faaf48587..3db2820bb6 100644
--- a/src/Desc.cc
+++ b/src/Desc.cc
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ size_t check_utf8 (const char* bytes, size_t n, size_t i)
 	{
 	// Check if this is infact a multibyte UTF-8 sequence,
 	// which requires a 1 to be the first bit of the first byte
-	if (!(bytes[i] >> 7 & 1)) 
+	if (!(bytes[i] >> 7 & 1))
 		return 0;
 
 	// Checks two to four bytes from starting position i
@@ -291,7 +291,12 @@ pair<const char*, size_t> ODesc::FirstEscapeLoc(const char* bytes, size_t n)
 		if (bytes[i] == '\\' )
 			return escape_pos(bytes + i, 1);
 
-		else if (!isprint(bytes[i])) 
+		size_t len = StartsWithEscapeSequence(bytes + i, bytes + n);
+
+		if ( len )
+			return escape_pos(bytes + i, len);
+
+		if (!isprint(bytes[i]))
 			{
 			if (utf8)
 				{
@@ -305,10 +310,6 @@ pair<const char*, size_t> ODesc::FirstEscapeLoc(const char* bytes, size_t n)
 			return escape_pos(bytes + i, 1);
 			}
 
-		size_t len = StartsWithEscapeSequence(bytes + i, bytes + n);
-
-		if ( len )
-			return escape_pos(bytes + i, len);
 		}
 
 	return escape_pos(0, 0);