
Who is TikToker Sam Walker?
The self-fashioned social media influencer who has garnered a huge following online after documenting his criminal life was left hospitalised in the aftermath of the attack.
4
Viewers believe he was hit with a golf club
Credit: UGC
Who is Sam Walker?
Sam Walker is a social media influencer who has amassed over 150,000 followers on TikTok.
Walker is a Liverpool-born creator who is currently living in the south of Spain.
The creator has amassed followers through his content, which documents his alleged criminal life.
Walker has travelled the world due to his work and has shared his trips to
READ MORE NEWS
4
Sam Walker was left hospitalised
Credit: UGC
While there, it seems that he meets drug dealers and assorted criminals, garnering a following, but also facing ridicule for potentially exaggerating his stories.
In March of the previous year, Walker had openly ridiculed the police after he skipped bail in the UK and escaped to Sierra Leone via private jet, where he then established his life and charity work with children from the country.
He reportedly has more than 130 offences to his name and last September was found guilty of contempt of court for live-streaming from an Irish courtroom on TikTok while there, entering a guilty plea for driving-related charges.
What happened to Sam Walker?
4
Eddie Lyons Jnr and Ross Monaghan were shot in Spain
Credit: Les Gallagher
In May, Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr were shot in Monaghan's bar in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol.
Most read in The Sun
Both Monaghan and Lyons were believed to be Scottish mobsters in gangs.
The bloody assault was in front of customers who had been watching the Champions League final.
Following the incident, Walker visited the same bar, posting to his TikTok his experience.
He said: 'This is a message to any one of yous out here.
"Stay on point, because if you get caught slipping. That's what happens.
'Three people have been whacked, two people are dead. Have a nice day, bam bam."
It is understood that his actions were seen as disrespectful to the victims of the shooting.
Following the incident, it is believed that gangster Walker had been brutally attacked in Puerto Banus, a small town southwest of Marbella in Spain.
The wounds were severe, which were allegedly caused by golf clubs and required staples in his skull to heal.
What is his response?
While he has yet to confirm the attack on his TikTok, he has released footage of himself in a Spanish hospital.
4
Picture of Sam Walker after the attack.
Credit: UGC
He has told his followers that the reason he is in the hospital is that he was in a car crash in Portugal.
There was an image posted to his social media to report the news, and days later referred to the incident as the sixth attempt on his life in the last year.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Irish Examiner
3 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Crime by offenders on bail rises 20% as prison overcrowding hits crisis levels
Recorded crimes committed by people already on bail for other offences has jumped by 20% in the last two years. Cork City and Dublin's north inner city show the sharpest rises in urban areas, with a large number of county divisions also experiencing significant increases. Senior sources said the increases were part of a wider "crisis in the criminal justice system", reflected by a severe, and worsening, overcrowding crisis in the country's jails. The latest figures show new records were set on Wednesday, with prison numbers hitting 5,581, more than 900 more that can be accommodated in Irish jails. Consequently, prison overcrowding reached a new high of 120% overcapacity. Cork Prison has experienced one of the worst increases in overcrowding during 2025, and is now 132% over capacity. Prison sources are most concerned about potential violence and security issues at older prisons with small cells, like Mountjoy Prison, and Cloverhill Remand Prison, which has larger cells but with up to four inmates in them. Cloverhill also has a high number of inmates, including homeless people, with serious or severe mental health issues. 'Gardai are doing their job, arresting and prosecuting offenders and the courts — and there have been a large number of extra judges appointed — are doing their job by convicting them or remanding them to prison, but the prisons are overflowing and have no space to hold them,' a senior justice source said. That means those sent to prison are either processed, placed in a holding cell for an hour or whatever, and then released back out. Or, if they have to be held — say it's a serious charge or conviction — other prisoners have to be released, on temporary release. The source added: 'We have reached the stage, and have for a while, where there is a crisis in the criminal justice system.' Prison sources have previously said use of temporary release has already passed its maximum safe usage, with numbers topping 600 on Thursday. In a case reported in the Irish Examiner on Thursday, a man who spat phlegm in a garda's face in Cork was jailed for five months, but was turned away from prison. The man was jailed for five months at Midleton District Court. However, due to overcrowding in Cork prison, he was back out. A second justice source said judges and gardaí knew prisons were full when bail was being considered. The source said: 'But if it's a repeat shoplifter or a homeless guy or an addict constantly causing trouble, what are they going to do on bail? They will continue.' Official figures on the number of crime incidents, where at least one of the suspected offenders was on bail at the time, reveals: 42,603 incidents in 2024, compared to 39,250 in 2023 and 35,478 in 2022 — an increase of 20% in two years; 2,211 incidents in Cork City in 2024, up 31% on 2022 (1,691); 9,718 incidents in Dublin North Central in 2024, up 31% on 2022 (7,397); Meath/Westmeath division saw a 72% increase, from 1,121 to 1,927; Kerry reported a 34% rise, from 565 to 755; Louth/Cavan/Monaghan had a 24% increase, from 1,686 to 2,092. All but two divisions experienced a rise in incidents in the last two years.

The Journal
5 hours ago
- The Journal
Tánaiste says any gardaí showing 'brazen' disregard for roads policing 'letting colleagues down'
ANY GARDAÍ WHO have shown a 'brazen' disregard for roads policing are 'seriously letting their colleagues down', Tánaiste Simon Harris has said. The Fine Gael leader was responding to comments by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, about a report that found some gardaí showed a 'blatant disregard' for roads policing duties while they knew their actions were being reviewed. The Journal / YouTube It comes amid a focus on road safety in Ireland, with the Government introducing new speed laws and after the Garda Commissioner mandated that frontline gardaí dedicate 30 minutes of road policing duties per shift. Simon Harris said he did not want to 'tar any one group with one brush', and said he has the utmost respect for gardaí. 'Indeed, it's not that long since we were at a funeral of a member of An Garda Síochána killed while on road traffic policing duties,' he said at Government Buildings. 'Having said that, I am concerned with what I've heard, and I'd like to be in a position to read it. So I think it's important that what the commissioner said he intends to do does happen, that he publishes the report so that we can actually see this and analyse it directly. 'Because any member of An Garda Siochana who is acting in the way that the commissioner outlined is seriously letting their colleagues down in the first instance, colleagues who work every day to keep us safe and would absolutely be undermining our road safety efforts in this country. 'There are far too many empty seats at far too many kitchen tables in Ireland. We've worked extremely hard as a country, I don't just mean as a government, as a country, to improve road safety over many years. 'That progress had stalled in recent years and indeed we'd seen a negative trend, and this is disappointing and concerning. 'But I think it's important that we have the opportunity to see the report, rather than to comment on a comment about the report.' Advertisement Asked if he was surprised that a member of government had not seen the report, considering the policing authority had seen the report in June, he said: 'I am somewhat, but I haven't had an opportunity to discuss this with colleagues in government yet, and I'd obviously like to discuss it in the first instance with the Minister of Justice.' Sean Canney, a junior minister with responsibility for road safety, said the reported findings were 'shocking' and 'serious'. 'There's no point in us bringing in laws, reducing speed limits, doing all of this kind of thing, if we don't have a functional enforcement section within the Gardaí,' he said on RTE Radio. Canney said his thoughts were with the families of the 95 people who had died on Irish roads so far this year. He said he had not read the report from consultancy firm Crowe, which has carried out investigations on behalf of An Garda Síochána previously, but planned to meet Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan and both the outgoing and incoming Garda commissioners. 'I'll be talking to the commissioners to express my deep concern with what is in this report,' he said. He said the independent Crowe report was conducted while the reviewer was 'sitting in the car with a garda that wasn't doing his duty and didn't seem to have a problem with that'. 'So I think there is definitely a serious case to be answered here as quickly as possible.' Harris said he commissioned the examination after he received an anonymous report from a whistleblower. The chairwoman of the Policing and Community Safety Authority, Elaine Byrne, said the report was 'shocking' and found some gardaí showed a 'blatant disregard' for road policing while they knew their actions were being reviewed. 'They were openly hostile to doing their job,' she said, in what she described as a 'wake-up call' for An Garda Siochana. She also described an issue with fear among Garda managers of carrying out poor performance management, which she said Harris agreed was an issue.


Irish Examiner
9 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Lies spread on social media led to attack on man in Limerick
An Afghan man was assaulted in Limerick after baseless claims were spread about him on social media. The 64-year-old man received injuries, including a broken nose, in the attack in early July, following claims online that he had been behaving inappropriately towards children, a claim which was later debunked by gardaí. Analysis of the online discussions around the incident, conducted jointly by the Hope and Courage Collective and Doras, shows how social media, racial profiling and co-ordinated vigilante activity led to the attack. The man, who is seeking international protection in Ireland, was harassed, filmed, and publicly identified before the assault following a fabricated Facebook post which accused him of inappropriate behaviour towards children. Within hours, the claim was pushed across TikTok, Instagram and X with one video reaching over 249,000 views. On July 1, he was surrounded and assaulted in public, sustaining a broken nose and later relocated for his own safety. Self-proclaimed 'community watch' groups filmed the man, circulated his image and framed the assault as a 'citizen's arrest". The report's authors say that "despite multiple reports, violent content remained online". 'This was not a one-off incident. It is the result of a disinformation network that uses fear and racism to justify violence,' said Edel McGinley, Director of Hope and Courage Collective, which monitors far right activity. What we're seeing is the rise of co-ordinated vigilantism in Ireland, hiding behind the language of community safety. In the days prior to the attack, the victim was harassed in a local park, and filmed, with footage posted to social media. A false allegation began on the afternoon of Sunday, June 29, when a woman uploaded a photo of the man alongside a fabricated story. This led to a member of the self-styled "community watch" group Sinne Na Daoine calling on the "men of Limerick" to "protect its own". By the following day, a prominent Irish far right account on X claimed in a post that a 'Muslim was cat calling children in People's Park' and said the slow Garda response was 'pushing society into vigilantism'. The post was viewed 190,400 times before being deleted. After the original post was circulated, a group confronted the Afghan man and called the Gardaí while filming, but the man walked to the station himself for his own safety. Later, a video showing him leaving the station was misrepresented as a 'citizen's arrest'. 'This man was seeking safety in Ireland and instead found himself at the centre of an online disinformation campaign that turned violent,' said John Lannon, chief executive of the migrant support group, Doras. He was treated with suspicion, fear, and hostility simply because of how he looked. The report found that the victim was later re-identified and harassed again in a different city. The authors of the report said that "what is evident in this case is that the Irish far right uses neutral incidents to frame a false and dangerous narrative that is used to justify profiling, harassment and violent assault". Ms McGinley said that disinformation is amplified online and called on European Commissioner Michael McGrath to intervene. 'As a matter of urgency we need to tackle the toxic recommender system that pushes hate and disinformation into people's social media feeds. People should be able to have control of what they see, not companies, driven by profit."