Dawson Davidson — a convicted rapist and former ballet student from a prominent Vancouver family — has been found guilty in Vancouver provincial court of twice choking a petite Vancouver prostitute while having sex with her.

Davidson, 45, faced three sexual-assault charges on three prostitutes, but was found not guilty on two counts.

During the period of the alleged assaults in the Kingsway corridor area near Clark Drive, Davidson was working as a carpenter on the set of Vancouver-filmed television series Smallville — until he was arrested and charged in January.

The attacks allegedly happened from late 2008 to July 2009.

In his reasons for ruling, Judge Gregory Rideout said Davidson was not proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt on two counts because the testimony of the two accusers was unreliable, and evidence was possibly tainted.

One of the discredited women admitted to smoking crack before testifying at Davidson’s trial in June.

But Rideout accepted evidence presented by the third woman, who can only be called D.B. because of a publication ban.

In court, D.B. said on a “bad date” in July 2009 Davidson twice choked her as they had sex in his car, forcing her to fake passing out both times, in order to stop him.

The first choke was “much like a wrestler using a wrestle choke hold,” Rideout wrote, summarizing D.B.’s testimony. “She went limp, faking that she had blacked out. She testified that she was unable to say anything because the choke hold was so severe.”

In court, D.B. said she met Davidson months later for a “date” and “told him to be more careful, he’s going to end up killing somebody.”

The key factor in Davidson’s guilt was that he did not have consent to choke the slight, vulnerable woman “who would be no physical match for any average male,” Rideout wrote.

In 1986, Davidson got an eight-year sentence after confessing to a spree of sex crimes the previous summer that saw three women attacked in Toronto and one in Vancouver.

He returned to B.C., where he was convicted and jailed for one year in connection with a violent attack in 1996 on a Vancouver prostitute, whose ear was nearly cut off.



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