Gangland killer who escaped from jail handed extended term

A GANGLAND killer who faked illness to be sprung from jail while on a hospital visit has been told he must serve another eight years behind bars.

Shaun Walmsley, 29, was already serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 30 years behind bars when two men, armed with an Uzi submachine gun and a knife, threatened to shoot and “cut” his three prison guards, before snatching him outside Liverpool’s Aintree Hospital in February last year.

Walmsley spent 18 months on the run from HMP Liverpool before he was captured in a preplanned operation by armed police in Leeds in August.

After he was repeatedly tasered and dragged out of a car he told the officers “Good job boys!”, Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday.

He was given a minimum 30 years in June 2015 for the brutal stabbing of rival drug dealer Anthony Duffy, 33.

After receiving news his appeal had been refused, Walmsley hatched the prison escape by deliberately losing weight and feigning illness.

Walmsley had a consultation at the hospital on February 8 last year, where he was told he would undergo a minor endoscopy procedure on February 21 – and was able to plot his bid for freedom.

The defendant pleaded guilty yesterday to a single count of escape from custody.

Judge Clement Goldstone, Recorder of Liverpool, told him that if he thought another sentence would make no difference as he was already serving life, “you could not be more wrong”.

He was told that although he is only eligible for parole in June 2047, he must serve another eight years after that sentence finishes – half of it in jail – before release.

The judge added: “After undergoing your procedure you were, to use the vernacular, sprung by two men who had parked a car nearby.

“Each was armed one with a machine gun the other a knife and gas canister.

“I have no doubt over the months you began to think by a combination of disguise, re-location and friends in low places you had become above the law and would remain at large indefinitely. But Merseyside Police had other ideas.

“Eventually the joint and perfectly co-ordinated operation with West Yorkshire Police led to your arrest.”

Earlier Henry Riding, prosecuting, had told the court that Walmsley was one of four men who was sentenced to life for the murder of Anthony Duffy, who was stabbed 28 times in Aintree in May, 2014.