Violation. Betrayal. And Andrew Giles’ wrong Direction

A host of serious offenders found in Direction 99 a level of generosity that they did not afford to their victims.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles in question time on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Such was the impact of Charles William Davidson’s offending that one of his victims took to washing herself with methylated spirits in an effort to remove the uncleanliness she felt.

Another said Davidson’s offending against her had sent her into a “horrific place of emotional and spiritual torment”.

“I have now resigned to the fact that having a stable intimate relationship may be something that may not be an option for me,” she said.

Some of Davidson’s 26 female victims – who include a pregnant woman, a 15-year-old girl, a fibromyalgia sufferer and a police officer – have contemplated suicide.

Davidson’s eight rape convictions, 48 sexual assault convictions and three convictions of indecent treatment of children under 16, spanning a 12-year period in which he offered massage services out of chiropractic clinics in Brisbane, were enough to warrant the courts to impose sentences totalling 16 years in prison.

But under Andrew Giles’ Direction 99, those offences were not enough to warrant his deportation. On Valentine’s Day this year, Administrative Appeals Tribunal member Theodore Tavoularis announced that 74-year-old Davidson would be allowed to ­remain in Australia, with the strength of the man’s ties to Australia – which had been elevated to “Primary Consideration 3” under Mr Giles’ Direction 99 – found to outweigh the protection and expectations of the Australian community.

The Australian’s revelations this week that Davidson had been allowed to remain here as a result of the changes to immigration law introduced by Mr Giles almost 18 months ago appeared to be the tipping point for a government and a minister that had been under growing pressure to act.

The following day, Mr Giles and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that Direction 99 would be scrapped and replaced by a new direction that they hoped would restore “common sense” to the AAT’s decision making. Giles has also ordered a review of several of the cases identified by The Australian’s reporting, believed to include that of Davidson, with a view to potentially using his executive powers to overturn their visa reprieves.

It is a crowded field, but Davidson’s offending is some of the most prolific and horrendous among the more than 80 serious criminals who have had their visa cancellations overturned off the back of ­Direction 99.

More than two dozen women came forward with similar stories of treatment at the hands of Davidson. Victim after victim told how they had attended the chiropractic clinic where Davidson was working in the expectation of professional remedial and sports massages, only to instead be violated.

One victim, identified as FE, described how during her massage Davidson made comments about how nice it was to work on a body with some muscle definition and tone. The judgment from Davidson’s unsuccessful appeal describes in graphic detail what Davidson did next.

“He put his thumbs on either side on the outside of her vagina, her outer labia and in circular motions massaged the sides, working his way to the inside of the outer labia. Every time he did the circling motion with his thumbs, he opened her vagina. She was in shock. She froze. She did not know what to do. She felt scared as she was alone, wearing a G-string,” the judgment said.

Later, as he gave her a neck massage, he removed the towel covering her chest before repeatedly moving his hands down over her breasts and nipples. As he massaged her belly and hip, he told her he was also a qualified beautician who would love to offer her his Brazilian waxing services. He texted her the next day to ask her how she was feeling, despite her not giving him her number.

Another victim, identified as EB, described how Davidson tweaked her nipples during a stomach massage. He then inserted his fingers into her vagina, before putting both hands around her breast and his mouth over her nipple.

One woman saw Davidson for chiropractic treatment at a time when she was suffering from fibromyalgia. Davidson, she said, had touched her breasts and pubic hair, telling her “you do realise men don’t like prickly bushes” before offering her his waxing services. As he massaged her buttocks, she started to feel his hands on her ­vagina, as if his whole hand was cupped inside her groin.

The woman then said, “No. That’s it. I’m done, I’m just, I’m done, I can’t, I, don’t do anymore” and jumped off the table. As she left, Davidson started talking about how she should go to his house and get waxings done there. He said he could do it cheaper and give massages at his home and wrote his address on a card.

Another of Davidson’s victims, HL, described how she told Davidson “no” when he said he was going to move down to her bottom. He then pulled her pants down, almost to the back of her knee, before moving his hand over her anus and into her vagina.

“During this time, (Davidson) kept speaking about all his experience with massages and how he had learnt this tribal kahuna massage in Sydney,” the court documents recorded.

The toll of his offending was enormous.

In one victim impact statement, JMC described how the sensation of touch on her breasts made her feel dirty and disgusting to this day. “I cannot tolerate anyone touching them at all during intimacy with my partner,” she said.

“This has impacted my sex life and relationship with my partner, if I was laying on my stomach and he touched the backs of my legs or inner thighs I would get away as quick as possible, and cry uncontrollably. I would see what happened with (Davidson) play over in my head.”

All that detail was before Mr Tavoularis back in April when he weighed up whether to revoke the cancellation of Davidson’s visa.

He also had to take into account Davidson’s lack of remorse, which remained clear even when he was pleading his case that he deserved to remain in Australia.

In his decision, Mr Tavoularis described Davidson’s evidence to the Tribunal as “perplexing, disappointing, vacuous and ultimately implausible”.

Davidson argued that the complainants against him had either concocted the reported behaviour, had given a “wrong” version of events, or held a vendetta. The police who investigated him, he said, had orchestrated the complaints by coaching or leading the women into reporting incidents and the techniques he had used had been used on “more robust and athletic clients” without complaint.

“His professed remorse is not convincing or genuine,” Mr Tavoularis wrote. “He accepts responsibility for ‘treatments that I did’ but otherwise self-servingly avoids any acceptance that those treatments were illegal or that he did illegal things in the course of administering them. He never accepts criminal wrongdoing but instead unconvincingly hides behind what he identifies to be poor decisions, poor management strategies, poor assessments and poor application of the techniques. This is not ­remorse.”

His wife and adult son also continue to insist he is innocent.

Davidson’s wife Wendy – who Mr Tavoularis described as the “true heroine” of the evidence and who he commended “for so stoically standing by” Davidson throughout the saga – said her husband’s adult victims “may have made some of it up” while his child victim “made this up because she didn’t like us”.

Despite a finding that the protection and expectations of the Australian community weighed heavily in favour of cancelling ­Davidson’s visa, Mr Tavoularis determined that Direction 99’s requirement for him to make the strength of an individual’s ties to Australia a primary consideration worked overwhelmingly in Davidson’s favour.

Davidson had moved to Australia from Scotland when he was just five years old, and, apart from one week overseas, had been here for the next seven decades.

Under Direction 99, “considerable weight” should be given to the fact a non-citizen had resided in Australia since their formative years “regardless” of their level of offending.

Mr Tavoularis also said that sending Davidson back to Scotland would “knowingly put an elderly and vulnerable returned non-citizen into harm’s way”.

“The totality of the evidence points … in favour of a finding that this Tribunal should restore the Applicant’s Visa status to remain here,” he wrote.