Liverpool ex-gangster on run hires private plane and flies to Freetown, while taunting police on Twitter

To admirers he is the heroic “Robin Hood” fugitive who fled Britain to help the people of Africa, while making a gloating online guide: “How to get out the UK when your wanted by police [sic]”.

To some bemused elements of law enforcement, however, Mr Sam Walker is “a complete moron”.

They say the convicted drug dealer is not, as he believes, wanted by Merseyside Police. He is wanted by Cheshire Police, and for failing to answer bail on a relatively minor charge of driving while disqualified.

In fact, so minor is his current alleged driving offence that some question whether Mr Walker would, as his online video guide claimed, have been “nicked” at the airport.

Which means that Mr Walker’s epic voyage to Freetown, Sierra Leone, via private plane to Belgium, 14-hour Spain to Morocco boat crossing, and up to three days’ driving through the Sahara desert may have been unnecessary.

Some think he could just have spent a few hundred pounds on flights that would have got him from his native Liverpool to Freetown in less than a day.

“People are strange, aren’t they?” mused one police source consulted by The Independent. “He does seem to have gone by quite a strange route, because I’m not sure he would have been nicked at the airport.

“If there was concern a defendant would leave the country, their details would be sent to all the ports and airports straight away, but if there isn’t that concern, usually it would be left to the local police force to deal with.”

The police source appeared to be backed by a Home Office staffer who told The Sun that no exit checks would take place preventing someone from leaving the country with an outstanding warrant for such a minor offence as driving while disqualified.

Mr Walker’s video guide for fugitives shows him apparently leaving Britain in the passenger seat of a hired light aircraft, laughing about armed Belgian police “packing some serious artillery”, and “jumping a boat to Morocco”.

It ends with him seemingly by the beach in Freetown, laughing heartily and saying: “Better luck trying to catch me when I go out of the country next time, Merseyside Police.”

The 35-year-old has explained he fled because he feared being jailed for driving while disqualified, which would have prevented him from delivering a container full of donated goods to a slum in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

But this, too, has been questioned by law enforcement officials who doubt he would have been jailed for just a disqualified driving offence. Mr Walker has himself admitted that the chances of him being jailed for disqualified driving were remote.

The experienced but baffled police source told The Independent: “It’s a strange one. He appears to have fled the country when he didn’t exactly have the worst charge hanging over his head.

“If convicted of driving while disqualified, he would probably have got banned from driving for a year and a fine. Instead he’s gone to Africa and put taunting videos online, and now he’s going to get jailed if he comes back.

“He seems a complete moron to me.”

Perhaps inevitably, Mr Walker and his supporters see things very differently.

Comments on his social media feeds describe him as an “absolute legend” and a “modern day Robin Hood” who has defied the law to do a lot of work for charity.

This is despite a past that can politely be described as chequered.

In 2016 a judge told him he had a “dreadful” and “varied” criminal record, involving dishonesty, “serious drug offences”, firearms, antisocial behaviour and “limited violence”, which had kept him in prison for much of the previous 15 years.

In 2008 he was jailed for four and a half years for his part in a heroin and crack cocaine-dealing gang whose activities ended when police seized £12m of drugs, along with luxury cars, bundles of cash and jewellery.

In 2014 Mr Walker achieved fleeting national fame by sending an online message to the footballer Ross Barkley in connection with a woman they had both dated, in which he told the then Everton player: “Don’t act stupid or your footie career will come to an end.”

Mr Barkley was visited by police, but declined to make a complaint.

At the 2016 court appearance, the judge was planning to give Mr Walker a 20-month sentence for dangerous driving which had involved him hitting speeds of more than 100mph while being pursued by police.

Mr Walker, however, managed to bump that up to 29 months with two separate contempt of court outbursts, one of which involved him boasting about punching paedophiles and yelling: “Nonces come to this court, they don’t get jail. I get jail. Where the f*** is the justice there?”

At the time it was reported that he had turned his back on crime and was intent on writing inspirational books for children.

Mr Walker’s Twitter feed is now littered with claims that the police are trying to frame or “stitch me up”, although he has also boasted: “I always get one over on them.”

On 25 April, in a video now seen more than 47,000 times, Mr Walker explained why he was going to skip attending Chester Magistrates Court and do a runner to deliver the container to the Sierra Leone slum.

He had to save some Africans, he said.

“I was in a catch-22: attend court and risk that small possibility of potentially going to prison and then I am not going to be able to do me container and give it out to the people in the slums. Or do I just f*** court and go to Africa and help the people?

“I chose the latter.”

He knew this meant he was “guaranteed a prison sentence” when he returned, but addressing the police directly, he said: “I want to let yous know that you can come and get me when I’ve come back from Africa.”

It seems, however, that Mr Walker did not immediately flee the country.

Instead his Twitter feed shows him in British settings complaining about being watched by undercover detectives, taunting police with old footage of “me and the lads” doing stunts in fast cars, confronting a “local house robber”, and calling someone else a “supergrass nonce”.

But on 30 May, Mr Walker posted his “how to get out of the UK” video, the Twitter version of which has now been watched more than 37,000 times.

Later social media posts show him talking about how a fresh water pipe has been fitted, “so no woman or child has to ever risk their lives again by drinking dirty sewage water in the slums”.

“Why can’t charities do this?” he adds. “I’ve come by myself and done it.”

The former drug dealer also accused charities of “robbing money that was donated to help these people”.

Later videos show him saying the container full of donated goods is expected to arrive on Saturday, and being surrounded by grateful slum dwellers, one of whom says: “We are happy that our brother Sam has come to help us with water and sanitation. We thank God for him.”

Mr Walker’s Twitter feed also suggests he has been well received by the government of Sierra Leone. On Sunday he wrote: “The new president [Julius Maada Bio] is good and for the people. I met his wife today!”

On Monday, he posted video of him in what looked like a government building and tweeted: “Am just sat waitin to see the Vice President of Sierra Leone to tell him my plans.”

Mr Walker, whose grandfather is believed to be from Sierra Leone, also seems to have established friendlier relations with the local police than he has with officers in Britain.

“Thought for a second they were going to open fire,” wrote Mr Walker about a video of him in the company of armed officers. “Luckily they were security police who had seen me by myself in a taxi and thought I was potentially in danger coz it was night.”

Back in England, however, not everyone has been impressed by his social media posts and how to escape Britain guide.

In an apparent reference to the minor nature of Mr Walker’s alleged disqualified driving offence and his carefully curated social media profile, one commenter has written: “pocketed a pick’n’mix, jumped ship to Africa for a few likes – [the] things people do nowadays.”

Merseyside Police would not elaborate on what was already “in the public domain” about Mr Walker.

Cheshire police said it was aware of Mr Walker’s online video and was reviewing it.

A Home Office spokesperson told The Independent: “Stopping individuals leaving the country for a minor offence would be an operational matter for port police.”