Shaun Walmsley: escaped killer caught in Leeds after 18 months on the run

A convicted murderer who broke out of prison during a hospital visit last year is back behind bars after police finally caught up with him in Leeds.

Shaun Walmsley, 29, was two years into a 30-year sentence at HMP Liverpool when he was whisked away by armed men outside Aintree Hospital in February last year.

Police launched an international manhunt to locate him, even offering £20,000 of the drug dealer’s own ill-gotten gains as a reward for information leading to his recapture.

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After 18 months on the run, Walmsley was finally arrested on Tuesday evening in an armed raid on a vehicle in the Hareshill area of Leeds carried out by officers from Merseyside Police and West Yorkshire Police.

“He is now due in Liverpool Magistrates' Court this morning after being charged with escape from lawful custody,” the Liverpool Echo reports.

The former drug kingpin “was said to have actively attempted to lose drastic amounts of weight” in the months leading up to the escape bid, the Daily Mirror reports, in order to “orchestrate his hospital visits and give the impression he was ill”.

It was on one of these visits to Aintree Hospital that two men armed with a knife and a gun ambushed the two prison officers escorting Walmsley back to prison, and bundled the convict into a gold-coloured Volvo before speeding away.

Members of the public were warned not to approach the killer, described by one of the officers behind his conviction as cold and remorseless.

Walmsley and fellow drug dealer Christopher Kenny knifed Anthony Duffy, 33, to death in a gruesome midnight attack in Aintree on 27 May 2014 after they allegedly uncovered his plan to steal from their cannabis farm.

The two men were convicted of murder in June 2015. Detective Chief Inspector Andy O’Connor said neither had “shown any emotion” nor “expressed any remorse” for their actions on that night.