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Lord Sugar appeared to fall victim to an internet joke after re-tweeting an image of a man pictured with Liverpool’s “modern day bogeyman” , Akinwale Arobieke.

The millionaire businessman, who has almost five million followers, accepted a request on Twitter to share an image of the two men after it was claimed they had been to buy his new book, Unscripted.

One of the men appeared to be Mr Arobieke, who became the subject of a far-reaching Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) in 2006 but has spoken publicly of the “witch-hunt” he feels he is the victim of.

Lord Sugar re-tweeted the image and its accompanying message “can I get a mention for my dad and his mate, just been all the way to town to get 2 copies of your book” at 7.19pm.

In just over an hour Lord Sugar ’s tweet was shared and ‘favourited’ hundreds of times as people pointed out the photo appeared to include Mr Arobieke, who was handed the SOPO amid numerous allegations of touching young men’s muscles and following spells in prison.

The 6ft 5in bodybuilder has never been convicted of a sexual offence.

Speaking to the ECHO last year, he said: “It’s a witch hunt and it needs to stop and people need to realise there’s a human being behind all of this nonsense.”

At the time his Liverpool-based lawyer Joe Ely added: “Mr Arobieke has become a modern-day bogeyman and so there’s been a witch hunt against him and he’s spent a long time in custody only to be found not guilty in a jury trial.

“It seems easy for members of the public to make allegations because of his notoriety.”

The tweet follows a similar incident earlier in the year that saw wrestler Hulk Hogan re-tweet an image of a man said to be backing him in the face of allegations of racism.

The person who tweeted him included a picture they claimed was of themselves but was actually Liverpool FC defender Kolo Toure.