Sonny Baldwin

Sonny was an old friend of Remi’s. He had lived next door to Remi’s family but his own family lost their money in bad investments. While Sonny’s parents decided to opt out and become hippies, Remi sold his bike and gave Sonny the money to go travelling. He ended up in Summer Bay after hearing Remi’s trust fund had matured, turning up in the share house shower and declaring his intention to spend Remi’s money. He also renewed his friendships with Kirby and Eden, having been around in the early days of Lyrik. He started off by buying everyone in Salt drinks with Remi’s money; Remi was happy to indulge him and gave him his own credit card. He met Remi’s other former bandmate, Theo, giving him advice on buying cheap car parts, and queried Kirby working at the board shop, suspecting she was still into music. He brought Angela Woods, a woman he had met in Salt, home and slept with her in Remi’s bed, since Remi was asleep on the couch. This led to Bree coming home and finding Angela in Remi’s bed, leaving Sonny to explain. Finding Remi and Eden at odds over Eden’s relationship with Cash, he tried to bring them together by throwing a party.

Sonny hired out an arcade but was unable to convince Theo and Remi to join him there. He instead hung out with Theo and Justin at the garage, reminiscing about his father’s classic car collection. His bitterness towards Remi began to surface with him complaining to Theo how things always went right for Remi. He helped Theo out with a cleaning job at the caravan park, refusing to take any of the money, thene tried to kiss Bree, prompting Remi to throw him out and leave him sleeping in his car until Theo let him move into his. He met with Gage Reynolds, who offered him and Theo money for mechanic work, and found Remi had cancelled his credit card so convinced Theo to take up Gage’s offer. It turned out Gage was with the River Boys, involved in fixing up cars for street racing. Sonny agreed with Theo that they should leave but they ended up staying when Theo took a liking to Gage’s girlfriend Lacey Miller. Theo gave Sonny a share of his earnings which he used to start paying back Remi. Remi’s suspicions over where he was getting the money from led to further tensions and he flirted with a newly single Dana. He was frustrated to learn Lacey and Theo were hooking up. After failing to convince Theo to distance himself from the River Boys, he moved out to a motel.

Bree brought him and Remi back together and he told them the whole story. He offered himself to Gage as a driver in place of Theo and spoke to Lacey, who admitted Gage might know about her and Theo, giving her his number. He then went to Cash and told him everything but was still left to handle things alone when Lacey messaged him saying Theo was in trouble. He found Theo tied up underneath a car ramp but was dragged outside by a River Boy, Spanner, and beaten up before he could intervene. By the time he came round, the River Boys were gone and the car had been lowered onto Theo. He managed to summon help and needed medical care himself for the beating. He gave a statement to Cash but hadn’t seen who hurt Theo, only being able to identify Spanner as his attacker. Justin blamed him for what had happened but later apologised.

With Sonny set to give evidence, Remi put him up in a motel with bodyguards. Dana, who had looked after him in hospital, visited him with a hamper and they shared a kiss but he sent her away afterwards. When Theo was also discharged, Bree arranged for him and Sonny to stay at her flat with security. Dana continued to visit him and decided to accompany him to court. However, they were ambushed by the River Boys, who kidnapped Sonny and Theo and dumped them in the bush. Sonny found Lacey’s phone and called for help, with Cash and Tane rescuing them just as the River Boys returned to kill them. Afterwards, Dana decided to distance herself from Sonny.

Sonny helped bring Kirby and Remi together after a row over her album and both he and Theo arranged to move in with Bree permanently. He approached Dana who ended up following him back to his flat and sleeping with him on the pretext of having closure. Despite this, they soon slept together again and he found himself interrogated by Harper about his intentions. He convinced Dana to go home and sort things out with her, after which they accepted they were in a relationship and he tried to console her when she lost out on a cardiothoracic post at the hospital. He helped Justin set up Kirby’s album launch and was sent to find Remi, who had the final mix of the album. Sonny found Remi passed out from drugs and managed to get both him and the album to the event. Next day, he seemed set to tell Bree but was pushed to the ground by Remi.

Remi assured him he was done with drugs and Sonny was forced to admit to Dana that he had once made a move on Bree when she overheard part of the conversation. When Remi failed to turn up at Kirby’s farewell, Sonny tracked him down at Avalon Bracken’s but he refused to leave with him. Sonny told Eden about Remi doing drugs and they went back to find Remi had slept with Avalon, with Sonny advising him to come clean. He found himself awkwardly stuck in the middle through living with Bree, who told him not to discuss her with Remi. Dana confided in him about Irene’s Alzheimer’s and her poor relationship with her parents and he raised Irene’s spirits with a salsa night. He encouraged her to go travelling while she could and was supportive when she agreed. Dana told him she loved him which he largely ignored. He explained he didn’t understand what she saw in him and told her he loved her too. He shut down the idea of Dana moving in with him but Harper encouraged him to ask her. He tried to support Remi, collecting his bike when he was charged with drink driving and steering him out of Salt. Having agreed to Dana moving in, he was the one to drive Irene out of town for the last time.

On realising Bree was feeling left out now she was living with two couples, Sonny threw a party for them all to befriend each other. He was annoyed when Dana commented on him not paying rent, showing her evidence that he did, but eventually accepted that he’d always played up the idea of not working, explaining how he’d worked his way around the world doing short-term jobs. He received an invite to his brother Dylan’s graduation but was reluctant because his parents had always unfavourably compared him to Dylan. Dana convinced him to go.

Remi asked him to handle the publicity for his new record label, Back on Track, but Sonny’s eccentric suggestions at their first meeting caused him to clash with Justin, who accused him of not taking it seriously. He briefly quit until receiving encouragement from Remi and Dana and an apology from Justin. He smuggled a bottle of champagne home from Cash and Eden’s bucks and hens night but hit Harper in the eye with the cork. Although Harper quickly forgave him, Dana was angry. Sonny tried to apologise by buying a teddy bear with an eyepatch for Archie to make him feel comfortable with Harper wearing one, which Dana initially dismissed until Harper liked it. He was initially planning to go to Cash and Eden’s wedding without Dana when she decided to look after Harper instead but Bree helped him see she wanted him to stay with her. They were left babysitting Archie again after Tane returned and, after a mini-break, learned Theo had been killed. He tried to support Lacey when he saw her before spending the day of the funeral with Leah, Justin and others.

When Remi was reluctant to carry on with the record label without Theo, Sonny convinced him they could continue it as a tribute. He listened to Dana’s worries about Harper tracking down their mother and supported Leah when she came to collect Theo’s things. He helped organise putting Theo’s guitar on display at the studio as a tribute, using a comment of Justin’s that Leah had told him about for a plaque. He and Remi went to look for talent at gigs and picked out Eddie Shepherd as a first signing, with Sonny suggesting taking him out on a boat to pitch. However, Sonny was late to their meeting thanks to going to support Leah, who was upset about a newspaper article on Theo’s death that focused on Lacey exposing Wendell rather than him. He did however manage to get Eddie to stay and listen to them. He was the first person Leah called when she was arrested for causing a disturbance at the Coastal News and, although he was happy to hand over to Justin, Leah turned up at his flat and spent all night talking to him.

Justin asked him to let him know if Leah turned up again and told him Leah had been referring to him as Theo. He nevertheless supported Leah when she gave her victim impact statement but when she pestered Dana to let Sonny spend time with her, Sonny told her he needed to take a step back. However, Leah began to fixate on him again when she found he had left a photo of the guitar tribute at Theo’s grave. When she let herself into the flat to leave a letter and then turned to him for support over Wendell’s sentencing, Sonny tried to get her to back off but she insisted Justin had never cared about Theo like they did. He briefly wondered if there was any truth in it but Remi reminded him how much support Justin had given Theo. They came up with a plan to launch Eddie at the Off the Rails festival, which had a party train going to it. Sonny managed to negotiate Eddie a place on the main stage and was unable to tell Leah not to come on the trip, although she didn’t turn up anyway. During the trip, he suggested a liaison with Dana and sneaked off to a deserted carriage only for the train to be involved in a crash. Sonny was left trapped and, when he was finally got clear, found he couldn’t feel his legs. He was taken to hospital where his scans were clear but the feeling still didn’t return and he was found to have swelling.

He got frustrated with Dana smothering him and with the lack of contact from Remi. Remi visited him and admitted he was closing down the studio, returning his dart board. Sonny lost his temper with Dana when she organised a rehab centre without consulting him but John later helped him out with wheelchair practice and booking somewhere himself. Dana took him to the rehab centre where he got talking to Louis, a double amputee whose girlfriend had left him. Sonny summoned Dana back and broke up with her, sending her away when she came back. He failed to engage with the rehab and argued with Louis again before falling out of his chair. He was taken to hospital where he named Remi as his support person ahead of Dana.

He went to visit Remi and Eden and learned Remi had a brain tumour. He nearly left but Eden convinced him and Remi to talk and he agreed to stay the night. He was with Remi when he had a fit and moved his leg while trying to get to him, but was unable to repeat it and Levi found no change. With Remi facing brain surgery, he decided to stay in town instead of going back to rehab. He was keen to avoid Dana on hearing she was back in town but John engineered a meeting. Although Sonny left when Remi went into surgery, he later confided in her and they kissed. She convinced him to see Cindy Swan, the surgeon who had helped Remi, and helped him with his rehab, although he found it uncomfortable being that close to her. They both saw his leg move during a session and were intimate again. However, Sonny became concerned when Dana started neglecting her family and spending all her time with him, telling her he needed space. After attending a rehab clinic in the city, he began to stand unaided, showing it off to Dana, Cash, Remi, Eden and John in turn.

With Remi and Eden focused on recording a song, Sonny was unsure of his place in the household. He asked Dana about moving back in but she was reluctant until he could handle the stairs. He got around it by getting Justin to help him up to the flat. He then decided to organise a birthday party for Archie, buying him a tricycle and staying on his crutches throughout, only to be left too exhausted to climb the stairs home and need John to help him. He refused to let Dana take time off to look after him and instead signed up to the gym and spent hours exercising until John and Remi stepped in. Tane offered to sort out a proper training programme for him but he continued to push the rules and sneak back into the gym. He told both Dana and Remi he was spending time with the other one in order to go back there. When he arrived at the gym to find it closed, he broke in, which coincided with a break-in at the surf club, leading to him being questioned by the police. John and Remi stopped him going back to the gym and Tane restricted him to one hour a day.

Another gym user, Beau Hammond, offered him steroids and he accepted after being too weak for a date with Dana. However, he was concerned when Harper began spending time with Beau. He tried to put her off by saying Beau had a girlfriend but had to back down when Beau denied it. He had to borrow money from Remi to pay his rent and refused to attend a double date that Dana organised with Harper and Beau. He then tried to get around his restrictions by attending a boot camp after gym. Beau dropped him as a customer and he punched Remi. Remi realised he was on steroids and found the pills when Sonny challenged him to prove it. Sonny smashed up the flat in frustration at being unable to contact Beau, explaining it as a bird getting in when Beau returned with Harper. Remi told Dana about the steroids but he convinced her he had bought them but not taken them. He ended his friendship with Remi and convinced Beau to give him more pills on credit.