A man who dramatically escaped Pentridge Prison with Ronald Ryan – the last man hanged in Australia – is back behind bars more than 50 years later.

Peter John Walker was arrested at Perth Airport in 2014, with a one-way ticket to London and more than $100,000 cash.

The 74-year-old had used a dead man’s identity to set up bank accounts and buy a property that was used for a drug lab and guns cache.

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That latest, and likely last, addition to his colourful criminal history cost him at least four years and four months behind bars on Wednesday.

Walker has not committed any violent crimes since 1965, the year he and Ryan fled Pentridge.

Ryan shot and killed a prison guard in the escape and was hanged two years later.

Walker, who had been serving 12 years for bank robbery, shot a tow truck driver in the back of the head while the pair were on the run and was jailed for manslaughter.

Ronald Ryan was the last man to go to the gallows in Australia in 1967.

He was released in 1984 and didn’t come to police attention again until 2001, for using cannabis.

“The notoriety of that escape, and Ryan’s punishment, has always hung over your head,” Chief Judge Peter Kidd told Walker on Wednesday.

In 2012 Walker went to Yaapeet – a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Melbourne, near the South Australian border – and bought a disused post office.

A shipping container was delivered there shortly afterward and police raided the place in 2013 after a neighbour reported sweet and pungent smells.

The Crown said it was a highly sophisticated operation but defence lawyer, Ian Hansen, disagreed, saying Walker’s plan was ill-conceived.

A drug lab in Yaapeet, which only has 22 dwellings, would have been “an absolute stand-out”, he told the court last year.

Police found ammunition and numerous guns in a shipping container, precursor materials and methamphetamine.

The cache of guns was a firearm “safe house” for other criminals, the County Court of Victoria heard, though Walker used some for hunting.

He wasn’t the only member of the operation and later told a psychologist he became involved after he was approached by mates.

Walker suffered a traumatic childhood and was institutionalised while young, likely leading to an entrenched belief he should help friends with their crimes, Chief Judge Kidd said on Wednesday.

He is a beloved step-grandfather to the family of his second wife, the court heard.

Walker was handed a maximum seven years and two months’ jail, and he must serve at least four years and four months, though he has already done two years of pre-sentence custody.

He committed his first crime, involving a stolen car, in 1958.

– AAP