Former Spandau Ballet singer Ross Davidson has been sentenced after being found guilty of a series of rapes and sexual assaults against six different women.
After two trials, the 37-year-old was remanded in custody, with Judge John Dodd KC ordering a report in February to assess the danger Davidson would pose in the future, setting his sentencing date as April 30.
This morning, he appeared at Wood Green Crown Court in London, where he was handed 14 years of jail time.
In a statement shared with Metro, Shikha Verma, senior Crown prosecutor in CPS London, said: ‘Ross Davidson is a predatory sex offender who targeted multiple victims over a number of years. Several of these offences were committed against women while they were asleep.
‘I want to pay tribute to the victims for their immense courage in supporting the prosecution, and Davidson has now been held accountable for his horrific crimes.
‘We understand the courage it takes for victims to come forward and would like to reassure any victims that the CPS will continue to work tirelessly with partners across the criminal justice system to ensure sexual abusers face the full extent of the law.’
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The Aberdeen-born musical theatre actor, who had starred in Queen-based West End musical We Will Rock You, was first convicted in July 2024 after his first trial of rape, two counts of sexual assault, and voyeurism, involving offences against four women.
At the second trial, after more than 11 hours of deliberation, a jury convicted him of raping a woman in London in March 2015 and the attempted rape and sexual assault of another woman in Thailand in December 2019.
Davidson had earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of voyeurism in December 2019 against the same woman in Thailand after a video he had taken of her as she slept was found on his mobile phone.
However, the musician, who used the stage name Ross Wild, insisted that his contact with the women, whom he met on the Tinder dating app, was always consensual and described himself as ‘sex positive’.
Davidson told the court earlier this year that this was about ‘open dialogue, open-mindedness about people’s predilections, just an openness to trying different sexual appetites’.
This could include bondage, restraint, and group sex, and he had ‘once or twice’ attended a sex party.
He had pleaded not guilty to his charges of rape, attempted rape, and sexual assault.
In contrast, jurors heard that he carried out the assaults because he felt he could get ‘sex on demand’ if he wasn’t ‘given what he thought he deserved’, with prosecutor Richard Hearnden saying Davidson had been thought of as ‘a bit of a sex symbol’. Two of the women said he had a ‘much darker side’, which they didn’t notice ‘at first’.
One rape victim told the jury that Davidson attacked her while she was asleep in his bed and recalled feeling ‘helpless’ and ‘scared to react’. Before assaulting her, Davidson ‘mentioned he liked the idea of having sex with a mannequin, a person in a helpless state, someone not moving’.
Jurors also heard he put her in a sex collar and wrist cuffs for about 20 minutes without her permission, which ‘confused’ her and left her in a ‘state of shock’ before he removed them when she asked.
In court, Davidson called all these claims of assault and a sex collar an ‘out-and-out lie.’
Regarding the attack of another woman in Thailand, she said she woke up in her bed in a hotel to find him trying to have sex with her without her permission or using a condom.
Davidson allegedly thanked her for ‘being cool about it’ when she ‘calmly talked him down’ from raping her.
She stayed with him that night, which she described as ‘regrettable but fair’, before they spent time together the following day on a beach and sightseeing trip.
Detectives tracked her down after finding Davidson’s video showing her being fondled while snoring, ‘asleep, still, and unresponsive’ and ‘at least half naked’, the prosecution said. She had no idea the video existed until the police told her in 2023.
In her evidence, the woman strongly dismissed a suggestion by Davidson that she had permitted him to touch her while she was asleep, telling the jury: ‘Why would I want a man to touch me when I am in a state of unconsciousness?’
He had claimed that she ‘told [him] she was in love with [him]’ and added, ‘it wasn’t reciprocated’.
Davidson also told the detectives: ‘I am sure attempted rape is a traumatic experience. How the hell would you spend time with someone intimately in their hotel if someone had tried to rape you?’
Additionally, Davidson had already told police in his interview that they spoke about ‘kinks and fantasies’ before having consensual sex, saying he created the video ‘for selfish reasons, for sexual gratification’.
Then, getting emotional, he told the jury: ‘I wish I had never done it.’
An initial investigation into Davidson, who performed with 80s favourites Spandau Ballet in 2018, began in 2019, police said, after officers found numerous videos of him on his devices raping and sexually assaulting victims.
Detective Constable Kamila Kedadrova, who was part of the investigation team, called him a ‘prolific offender who carried out cowardly and opportunistic assaults against his victims’.
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