A New South Wales man accused of running a sex cult where women were allegedly kept as slaves has been sentenced to 25 months imprisonment for assaulting a former partner and another woman.
Davis was arrested in March 2021 after a Four Corners investigation in which multiple women told the ABC that Davis had sexually or physically abused them.
In sentencing remarks, Magistrate Clare Farnan described Davis’s course of conduct as “a serious type of domestic violence because the offending had become normalised within a relationship”.
In 2021, Felicity Bourke told Four Corners she was subjected to months of psychological manipulation, coercive control and repeated physical and sexual violence perpetrated by her former partner, James-Robert Davis.
Felicity described how she was told to sign a contract that would make her a “slave”, was forced to wear a collar, and was tattooed with a number as part of what was pitched to her as a form of sexual role-play known as BDSM.
At the time, Davis claimed that activity was consensual.
The court accepted that one count of assault involved Davis slapping Felicity so hard that it resulted in a burst eardrum.
Another count of common assault involved Davis caning Felicity so hard that it left welts, which he claimed was consensual. The magistrate said that due to the nature of the relationship, it was difficult for Felicity to decline to consent to that type of activity.
Davis’s actions towards Felicity were “particularly concerning” because the power imbalance in the relationship “left [her] with little recourse”, the magistrate added.
None of the women who he previously referred to as his wives or slaves wrote character references or letters of support.