Today when I watch films liked ‘Urban Legend’, I just laugh my bollocks off at it. We have our very own real-life ‘Urban Legend’ here in North-West England, and the terror which he spread amongst schoolyards wasn’t as false as we thought…I clearly remember having a kick-around with my mates in a local park and the ball getting kicked over to an area, hidden by trees. ‘You better watch out Purple Aki is in there and he’ll bum yer!’ ‘Purple Aki’ was a playground tale, about a tall, stocky, gay black man who would chase you and rape you, if he clasped eyes on you. Now in Wigan at the time, black men were a rarity, so you can imagine the terror of any young lad when he saw one such gentleman!
The stories we heard were terrifying, one involving him chasing a young lad through a railway station and the lad getting killed. Stories from lads about ‘Getting chased off him’ were quite popular, as were accounts of him ‘hanging around outside the school’ and that he liked to 'engrave his name on your arse'. Of course, we dismissed these stories as bollocks and got on with our school lives, but that little bit of terror remained whenever we walked home during the dark, or kicked a ball in a bush.
We all eventually grew up and forgot about Purple Aki and the stories about him, but you could imagine my shock when I opened up the local paper one day to see that Purple Aki was indeed real!
Akinwale Arobieke is a 6ft 5, 20-stone man from Toxteth in Liverpool. He had been in court during the 80’s for chasing a lad, who got electrocuted on the railway line. He was originally convicted of manslaughter but successfully appealed, as he was ‘just looking in the trains and the lad had ran away from him’. The stories from my youth where coming back to me, I could feel horror I felt then - Purple Aki was indeed a real man!
The article went on to list a number of incidents he was involved in all over the North West. More recently, Purple Aki found himself in court again, for a number of offences including ‘touching muscles without consent’. Not quite the rape we were led to believe as kids, but still terrifying!
Purple Aki was jailed for these offences, but once out, he was given a 'Sexual Offences Prevention Order' and banned from the towns of St. Helens, Widnes and Warrington. However this didn’t deter him, as he was convicted of touching muscles again, this time in North Wales and is currently serving a two-year jail sentence for breaching his court order.
I know for his ‘victims’ it isn’t funny, but I couldn’t help laughing when all those scare-stories came flooding back! We had dismissed him as a bogeyman a long time ago and to see him, peeping at me from the newspaper, was just a great moment as I connected with my childhood again. I suppose I’m thankful that those tales of rape weren’t true, but the oddness of the man is still a bit scary!
A simple Google search later and it hit me how popular Purple Aki is. Many people (of varying ages) had heard the same tales and were as shocked as I was to learn that he was real. There’s even a website, YouTube cartoons and Facebook groups of him. Not to mention a Purple Aki flag that was flown at Glastonbury in 2008! With the internet, I’m wondering if Urban Legends can exist anymore? For years, we didn’t know if Purple Aki was real, or just a made-up Chinese Whisper. It seems these days that nobody can be anonymous anymore.
In the case of Akinwale Arobieke, I suppose that is a good thing!
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