Former Spandau Ballet singer Ross Davidson has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after being found guilty of a series of rapes and sexual assaults against six different women. The 37-year-old appeared at Wood Green Crown Court in London on April 30, where Judge John Dodd KC handed down the sentence.
Davidson, who also performed under the stage name Ross Wild, was first convicted in July 2024 after his first trial for rape, two counts of sexual assault, and voyeurism, involving offences against four women. At a second trial, following more than 11 hours of deliberation, a jury found him guilty of raping a woman in London in March 2015 and the attempted rape and sexual assault of another woman in Thailand in December 2019. He had earlier pleaded guilty to voyeurism in December 2019 after a video of a sleeping woman was found on his phone.
Prosecution Statement
Shikha Verma, senior Crown prosecutor in CPS London, said in a statement: ‘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.’
Verma added: ‘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.’
Details of the Assaults
Davidson, a musical theatre actor from Aberdeen who starred in the West End production of We Will Rock You, insisted that his contact with the women, whom he met on Tinder, was consensual. He described himself as ‘sex positive’ and told the court that this was about ‘open dialogue, open-mindedness about people’s predilections, just an openness to trying different sexual appetites’. He mentioned bondage, restraint, and group sex, and admitted attending a sex party ‘once or twice’.
However, jurors heard that Davidson carried out the assaults because he felt he could get ‘sex on demand’ if he wasn’t ‘given what he thought he deserved’. Prosecutor Richard Hearnden said Davidson had been thought of as ‘a bit of a sex symbol’. Two of the women said he had a ‘much darker side’ that was not apparent ‘at first’.
One rape victim told the jury that Davidson attacked her while she was asleep in his bed, leaving her feeling ‘helpless’ and ‘scared to react’. Before assaulting her, he ‘mentioned he liked the idea of having sex with a mannequin, a person in a helpless state, someone not moving’. He also put her in a sex collar and wrist cuffs for about 20 minutes without permission, which ‘confused’ her and left her in a ‘state of shock’. Davidson called these claims an ‘out-and-out lie’.
Regarding the attack in Thailand, the woman said she woke up to find him trying to have sex with her without permission or a condom. Davidson allegedly thanked her for ‘being cool about it’ when she ‘calmly talked him down’. She stayed with him that night, which she described as ‘regrettable but fair’, and they spent the next day together. Detectives tracked her down after finding a video on Davidson’s phone showing her being fondled while snoring, ‘asleep, still, and unresponsive’, and ‘at least half naked’. She had no idea the video existed until police told her in 2023.
In evidence, the woman strongly dismissed Davidson’s suggestion that she had permitted him to touch her while asleep, telling the jury: ‘Why would I want a man to touch me when I am in a state of unconsciousness?’ Davidson claimed she said she was in love with him, adding ‘it wasn’t reciprocated’. He also told 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?’
In his police interview, Davidson said they spoke about ‘kinks and fantasies’ before consensual sex, and he created the video ‘for selfish reasons, for sexual gratification’. 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 after officers found numerous videos on his devices of him raping and sexually assaulting victims. Detective Constable Kamila Kedadrova, part of the investigation team, called him a ‘prolific offender who carried out cowardly and opportunistic assaults against his victims’.
