Speaking exclusively to WHO's celebrity interview podcast, Who Are You with Pete Timbs, Mark shared details of the terrifying affair that began in 2005.
“I got a call in the middle of the night from the police telling me my dance studio was on fire. I thought it was a kitchen fire or something, but I knew it was an issue when I drove up the hill and all the smoke was pouring out the windows and at the top of the building,” he reveals in the podcast.
“It was a disaster…the studio was destroyed. But it wasn’t until a couple of days later that the police told me it was deliberately lit. And suddenly you become a suspect as the police have to investigate,” Marks adds.
“I asked ‘why would someone do that to a dance studio?’ In what headspace would someone have to be to do that?”
It took a while to get his life back on track, but in 2008 Mark managed to open another studio but then 12 weeks later he got another phone call.
“I got a phone call saying your studio is on fire. I thought it was a dream. That’s when I knew it was absolutely about me. It was completely gutted. The new floor, the plasma machine everything was gone,” Mark reveals.
Mark then received another phone call to his family home. It was from the stalker and they told his wife: “If your husband sets up again, we know where you live and we’ll burn your house down…”
Mark then explains how his life took a sharp down turn as he suddenly had to protect his family’s life.
“I went from being completely normal to being in complete fear. I sit up at night watching outside my window. We had security put in the house, police would be doing drive bys past our house. I took the kids to self-defence classes… so they knew how to defend themselves,” he reveals.
“I learned how to get my wife and kids out of the car in 45 seconds, what to look for when I came out of any venue, spaces behind cars.
“It changed our lives, it changed my wife’s fear, stress…”
Mark had no idea who the stalker could be and described them as someone who ‘didn’t like what I had done, so burned my house down.’
“I went through a long time considering what I had done, who had I said something wrong to, but it wasn’t until the investigating officer told me to let go of feeling guilty about it because whatever you did, the person’s reaction, is not a normal reaction for appropriate behaviour. And it helped me not getting invested in it,” he reveals.
Mark has plenty to say on this and more. Hear what he say to say in the latest episode of Who Are You, available now. Listen below!
