Bodybuilder Purple Aki found dead at home in Liverpool

Akinwale Arobieke, 64, was found dead at his home on Devonshire Road in Toxteth.

Merseyside Police said officers were called at about 8.30pm on Tuesday to find Arobieke unresponsive. The bodybuilder was pronounced dead at the scene.

His death is not believed to be suspicious and a file has been passed to the coroner.

A Merseyside Police spokesperson said: ’We can confirm that emergency services were in the Toxteth area following a non-suspicious death last night, August 26.

’At around 8.30pm, officers were made aware of a man in his 60s being found unresponsive at an address in Devonshire Road, Princes Park. He was sadly pronounced deceased at the scene.

’The man’s death is not suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.’

Who was ’Purple Aki’?

Arobieke became an ’urban myth’ in Merseyside during the 1990s after approaching young men and asking permission to touch their muscles.

In 1986 he was sentenced to 30 months in prison after being found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of 16-year-old Gary Kelly, who jumped from a railway platform and was electrocuted by the third rail trying to escape him.

However Mr Arobieke successfully appealed against his conviction and was awarded £35,000.

In 2003, he was sentenced to six years in prison over 15 charges of harassment and witness intimidation.

While behind bars he was made subject of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) which banned him from touching men’s muscles, going to gyms, or asking people to do squats in public.

Less than six months after the SOPO was put in place, he touched a man’s biceps without permission and was jailed for 15 months for breaching the order.

In 2010, Arobieke was arrested and sentenced to two and a half years for touching a 16-year-old boy’s muscles. He claimed he had been set up.

Arobieke was arrested again in 2015, charged with harassing a young man on a train from Manchester.

Whilst Arobieke was found guilty of the breach, he maintained that he had again been falsely accused as a result of his reputation.

The SOPO was lifted following an appeal in 2016.

In 2022, he was handed a substantial pay-out from police after he sued the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office.

He claimed two unnamed GMP officers carried out a campaign against him to get him into trouble.