Jim Davidson Is Always 59: The Media Licked Its Lips When The Celebrity ‘Savile’ Cops Swooped

Presenter Emma Willis speaks to Linda Nolan and Jim Davidson as they are handcuffed together before entering the Celebrity Big Brother House, Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire.

“TV Jim” is Jim Davidson, who when flying back to appear on Celebrity Big Brother was arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of abusing a young woman decades previously. The Celebrity Police Force swooped, nicking Davidson in full view in a public place. He wasn’t flying out of the country; he was flying in. He’d have headed to his Hampshire home. Why didn’t the police arrest him there? Are the police now our moral vigilantes?

Do the police only nick the ugly ones?

It turned out he had no case to answer. The matter was dropped. So. Here’s Jim to talk about his “sex arrest agony”

— Every minute I thought I would end up going to jail
— I feared cops were out to convict me but I was not going to be Savile’s scapegoat

Back in January, the Sun led with: “JIM: I’M NO JIMMY.” That’s Jimmy Savile, formerly Sir Jimmy Savile, now a man covered in lots of lots of dirt.

It was Davidson who had written of Savile on his blog:

Who’s next to be the victim of a media feeding frenzy? I have the answer to that. But, like Jimmy Savile, it’s only rumours. But when these rumours come out… WOW!”

Adding:

“As odd as he was, Savile can’t defend himself. The bloke’s dead for God’s sake. Let’s move on.”

It’s all horrible, isn’t it. The two women make a claim. The police investigate. They arrest Davidson in a staged sideshow. But he’s not charged with any crime. We should have faith in the investigation. But instead we are invited to play armchair detective:

…he angrily told a friend: “It’s not in my make-up to do what I’ve been accused of. If a girl wasn’t interested I’d say, ‘F*** it, all right then’ and move on. I know at the end of this I will be completely exonerated. I have done nothing wrong.”

Jim told the anonymous source:

“I can’t remember last week — let alone 25 years ago. But I know this much, I have never, ever taken advantage, or anything else like that, of a woman. There was one occasion during a pantomime when a really beautiful dancer got completely rat-a**** during a cast night out. She was very, very drunk and I didn’t want her to go home in a cab on her own late at night in that state. I gave up my bed in my hotel suite and stayed the night on the floor of the living room. I never laid a finger on her even though she was completely comatose and wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. That’s what kind of bloke I am — I’m a gentleman.”

Could this be the same Gentleman Jim Davidson whose ex-wife Alison Holloway alleged in The People in 2001:

“His behaviour is so unhinged I was terrified of him most of the time. He could change from Prince Charming to being a monster in an instant…

“One of his favourite ways of man-handling me was to get me in a vice-like grip by grabbing both my shoulders and yelling in my face.”Another one was to yank me by my arm or grab my hair…

“We started arguing and then he dragged me out by my hair, ripping my shirt and either punching me or elbowing me in the face. My shirt was covered in blood and he drove off and left me crying on my doorstep. I felt so humiliated but there were so many incidents like it. On another occasion I ended up with a black eye because he threw some car keys at me at point-blank range when we were arguing about who should drive the car…”

The Sun had more:

Seven officers emerged from the house at 7pm carrying a plastic box and a large envelope containing potential evidence…The box contents appeared to include electrical leads.

Oh, yes… The Sun zoomed in. Others just piled in. These were the headlines:

The Times: “Jim Davidson is arrested by Savile inquiry detectives”

Daily Telegraph: “Davidson is arrested in Savile abuse investigation”

Daily Mirror: “Savile cops nick nick TV’s Jim”

The Sun: “Nicked Nicked: Davidson arrested by Savile cops”

Daily Mail: “Davidson arrested by Savile police”

Daily Express: “Jim Davidson arrested by Savile police”

Daily Star: “Jim Davidson nicked by Savile sex case cops”

But the alleged offences were not connected to Savile. They did not concern underage girls. You had to read down to get the facts.

Says Davidson now:

The stories didn’t make sense at all. There were lots of inconsistencies and to me a student at law school could have picked holes in the women’s stories.

“I felt relief when I saw the statements, I knew I hadn’t done it. But the police told me the women were ‘victims’, not ‘complainants’ — and that they were under instructions from their bosses to ‘treat their statements as the absolute truth until they have proof otherwise’.

“Then they said they were going to search my house and my offices. I said, ‘What do you expect to find there from the 80s? A pair of knickers down the back of the sofa’?”

Still, one even better bit of news for Davidson. Last year the Sun said he was 59 when arrested.

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