Horrifying moment Shirley Ballas' stalker confronted her mum in the supermarket

Shirley Ballas has told how she feared for her life after a seven-year stalking campaign, admitting: “I will never feel completely safe again.”

The Strictly Come Dancing Judge, 64, opened up about her ordeal at hands of Kyle Shaw, 37, who washanded a suspended 20-month prison term, in April.

Talking to the Sunday Mirror about the lasting mental impact, Shirley admits: “I'm looking around and watching all the time…. and life shouldn't have to be like that. That's what he's done to me and my family.”

In her new memoir Best Foot Forward, Shirley revealed the sheer scale of Shaw’s campaign for the first time - including following and confronting her elderly mother Audrey in the supermarket.

She writes: “I didn’t feel safe in my own home and had sleepless nights worrying about what he was going to do. Would he put a bomb through the letterbox? Or try to set the house on fire? I had smoke detectors installed everywhere. He’d shown he was prepared to follow a little old lady round the supermarket, what else was he capable of doing to frighten the living daylights out of my family.”

The nightmare began when Shirleyjoined the Strictly panel as the new Head Judgefor the 15th series of the show in 2017, replacing the outgoing Len Goodman. Shaw sent messages to her social media account claiming to be the biological son of her late brother David, who took his own life aged 44, in 2003.

READ MORE: Shirley Ballas breaks silence on toyboy's devastating vanishing act and red flags she ignored

Shirley and her team initially thought he was a crank but the messages escalated, and became increasingly graphic.

“He was soon hounding me through every channel possible. Via Facebook Messenger, Twitter and Instagram, he was demanding a DNA test and accusing me of killing David,” she writes.

One haunting message read: “‘Just a reminder, my dad is dead because of you, because you left him alone. He’s dead. You killed him. You murdered him. You did this. Why did you leave my dad to die?’

Shirley called the police and Shaw was warned not to contact her again. But the warning did nothing.

She writes: “Not only did he continue to harass and attack me, but he also started bombarding other members of my family, including my elderly mother. He’d seek out my friends and post the most awful messages to them, using language I can’t even bring myself to repeat.”

Shirley was forced to take drastic measures including installing CCTV and an extra alarm system at her house. She stopped using public transport altogether. The BBC also gave her additional security in and around the studio and on the Strictly tour. The abuse always started around August when publicity for the latest series of the dance show began.

She writes: “He’d told me to look over my shoulder and that he’d always be there. He posted a photograph of my house and car on social media with a message that read, ‘You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.’ When my debut novel came out in 2023, he sent me a deluge of messages threatening to turn up at one of the dates on the promotional tour. ‘I’ll be there, Shirley. I’ll be at the show. I’ll be everywhere, lurking in the wings.’ What should have been a happy time in my life celebrating writing a book I was proud of, turned into an enormously distressing experience.”

At one point Shaw managed to get hold of her former partner Danny Taylor’snumber and told him how he knew where they both lived, and described their recent movements.

She explains the “final straw” was when he “went to the extreme of following my mother around the supermarket in Liscard and confronted her, which was a horrifying experience for a woman in her eighties.” As a result she moved her mum into her home in London.

Despite being in regular contact with the police, Shirley said she endured a frustrating experience.

She writes: “Merseyside Police were helpful but the system makes it very difficult for charges to be brought, which leaves victims trapped. It’s as if you have to come to physical harm before the law steps in to protect you. All I could do was gather the correspondence and keep passing it on to the police.”

Eventually, in December 2023, more than six years after the first message, Shaw was arrested and later charged with stalking.

But at the early court hearings, Shaw pleaded not guilty.

“It looked like the case was headed for trial where I would have to give evidence,” she writes. “The thought of that caused me huge anxiety. My mother would also have had to take the stand, as well as friends and family who were witnesses.”

However in February 2025, he changed his plea to guilty and was handed a 20-month suspended sentence on April 1. He was also banned from contacting Shirley or any of her family again.

She writes: “I was satisfied that justice had been done – I had no interest in seeing the boy go to jail. He’s a very troubled person who needs help, not prison. The psychiatric report revealed a damaged person whose life had been blighted by mental illness, homelessness and drug abuse. I just hope he continues to get the support he needs to rehabilitate.”

In her witness statement, she told how her life had been changed forever by the ordeal.

She wrote: “He’s taken my peace of mind away from me and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover it. I will never feel completely safe again. But I’m relieved it’s over and we can all move on. The weight has been lifted and yet again, I’m battered, bruised but still standing. That in-built pluckiness to keep marching on, no matter what, had come through for me once more.”

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, Shirley said she was glad the situation had resolved but spoke of her sadness of how it affected her family, her mum in particular.

“The messages he wrote to this little old lady who has never gotten over the death of her son, it was very hard,” she says.

“As for me, I don't think I've ever traveled by train since, I'm always looking over my shoulder. If I go to the park, I never go after six o'clock. If I'm walking somewhere, I never have ear plugs in.”

BEST FOOT FORWARD by SHIRLEY BALLAS, published by BBC Books on 11th September at £22 Copyright © Shirley Ballas 2025