Former frontman of Spandau Ballet, Ross Davidson, told a woman ‘thanks for being cool about it’ when she calmly talked him down from raping her, a court has heard.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told Wood Green Crown Court that she woke up in a hotel room in Thailand to find Ross Davidson attempting to have sex with her without her consent and without a condom.
She said the pair had met only recently on Tinder.
Describing herself as ‘naive’ and ‘very trusting,’ the tourist said she had not thought someone would ‘mess with me’ while she was asleep.
Jurors heard that the pair had drunk alcohol and had consensual sex the night before, but that she believed there was a ‘trust point where you trust that people will respect your boundaries.’
Davidson, 37, of Finchley, north London, is on trial accused of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault. He denies all charges.
The woman told police it was daylight when she woke, feeling hungover, and immediately realised she was in a ‘dangerous situation.’
She said Davidson was ‘not wearing a condom and seemed surprised she woke up,’ and that she asked him, ‘what are you doing?’
She said his eyes were ‘weird and I did not know what was going to happen’, prompting her to speak calmly ‘to lessen it (the situation) so that he did not try to hurt me.’
In her police video interview, the woman recalled: ‘I remember him (Davidson) saying thanks for being cool about it.’
Recalling the moment she woke, she said: ‘He froze but he had this scary look on his face.
‘I thought there was a possibility he might hit me, but I do not know if that was just my perception, but all of these unseen possibilities of being physically harmed in various ways (came to me).
‘I thought “oh my God,” I might die. I did not know what he was capable of.’
She told officers she said he had to ask for consent and pointed out that he was not wearing a condom, keeping her tone deliberately calm. Davidson was ‘very tense’ at first, she said, but became ‘very calm’ as she reassured him she was not ‘going to freak out.’
The court also heard evidence about video footage found on Davidson’s mobile phone.
Prosecutors said detectives traced the woman after discovering footage showing her lying down ‘at least half naked’ in a hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, where she is allegedly fondled while ‘asleep, still and unresponsive.’
The woman said she was unaware the footage existed until police informed her.
She described the discovery as ‘disembodying to know that was taken, it feels disempowering,’ adding it caused a ‘scary’ and ‘horrible feeling’ and made her fear it could have been uploaded to a pornography site. Police later told her the video appeared to exist only on Davidson’s phone.
She told officers: ‘How can you consent if you are asleep?’ and ‘Also, why would I want this strange man to sexually assault me in my sleep?’ She added: ‘there is no way that was beneficial to me or a pleasure.’
Davidson, who previously performed under the stage name Ross Wild, appeared in the West End musical We Will Rock You and toured in 2018 as the lead singer of Spandau Ballet.
He has pleaded not guilty to the alleged rape of a woman in London in March 2015, and also denies the attempted rape and sexual assault of another woman in Thailand in December 2019.
Jurors have been told he has pleaded guilty to a charge of voyeurism relating to the same Thailand incident.
Defence counsel Charlotte Newell KC has told the court that Davidson denies raping, attempting to rape, or sexually assaulting either woman. She said: ‘He will say there was no sex at all with her in London as he was not sexually attracted to her – and that maybe disappointing or upsetting – in reality there was no spark for him.’
Addressing the Thailand allegations, Ms Newell said Davidson denies attempting to rape the woman while she was asleep and maintains the sexual touching was consensual, claiming she was pretending to be asleep.
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