Bodybuilder, 32, faces restraining order for stalking keep-fit fan ex, 26, after she ‘dumped him for rival gym-goer’
A BODYBUILDER now faces a restraining order after stalking his ex when he thought she dumped him for a rival gym goer.
Danny Baldwinson, 32, would not stop bombing Aaliyah Baptiste’s phone with abusive messages, would pester her at the gym and turned up outside her home – peering in her bedroom window.
But Baldwinson says his 26-year-old ex was dating someone else from the gym, she was working out when she knew he was, and their meeting – outside her bedroom window – was pre-planned.
Now the 18-stone bodybuilder faces a restraining order after being found guilty of stalking Aaliyah.
The conviction also puts the Staffordshire man in breach of a 60-day suspended prison sentence for breaching a non-molestation order with someone else.
Some of Baldwinson’s abusive messages were played back, with the court hearing him call who he thought was Aaliyah’s new partner a “four out of ten”.
In one message the Newcastle-under-Lyme man said: “I am embarrassed. What an ugly f****** kid, from f****** Bulgaria.”
The Croydon Magistrates Court heard how after a year of working out together and holidaying Aaliyah ended the relationship.
She told the court: “I did not want anymore contact, but he did not agree to end things.”
The business graduate said she blocked his number, and his social media accounts, but he kept trying to contact her.
Aaliyah said Baldwinson started showing up at the gym when he knew she’d be there.
She recalled: “I would ignore him, but he would try and talk to me and asked: ‘Can we discuss this?’ but I told him: ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ I wanted to get on with my day.’
“He would pick the times I was training to see me and start a conversation.
“I started to go to a different gym so I would not have to see him.”
The horror unfolded for Aaliyah between July 1 and August 8, last year.
But Baldwinson, a former winner of the Hercules Olympia competition, claimed his ex knew his strict workout routine and would be at the gym when he was.
However, all came to a head when the dad-of-two showed up at Aaliyah’s house at 8am one morning, and knocked on her bedroom window.
She told the court: “He was demanding answers from me and assuming I had a new partner and was saying: ‘I want answers. How could you meet someone so soon?’
“I was nervous, anxious and scared. For someone to knock on the window and lean in is quite scary.”
He would pick the times I was training to see me and start a conversation.
Aaliyah Baptiste
Aaliyah recorded the clash and it was played back in court – along with other abusive voicemails.
In one of the recordings Baldwinson can be heard saying: “Are you f****** him?
“You’re hurting me. Can you see how much you’re hurting me?’
In another he said: “You’ve been lying to everyone. I don’t want to be worrying about you or f****** heartbroken about you. You are taking the p***”.”
Baldwinson insisted he never stalked or harrassed Aaliyah – but instead that things turned sour after he insisted on loaning her £2,000.
He told the court: “We had a mutual passion for fitness and I introduced her to the gyms and the community.
“She made demands and wanted quite a lot of self-improvement for me.”
The bodybuilder continued: “She said the relationship was pretty much done, but if she saw action on my part in the next six months we could be together.
“The truth had come out that she was seeing someone for a considerable time. She was keeping her options open by stringing me along.
“I was being made a fool of because she was sleeping with a guy at the gym.”
But Magistrate David Armitage said: “He has admitted he did not take the break-up well and we consider the calls to be hostile in nature.”
The prosecution will apply for a restraining order when Baldwinson is sentenced next month.