Draft:Ron Davies affair

The Ron Davies affair or Ron Davies scandal, also simply known as the Davies affair, was a British political scandal which began in late October 1998. It was triggered by the resignation of Ron Davies as secretary of state for Wales, who said he had made a "serious lapse of judgement" when meeting a man, later identified as Donald Fearon, at Clapham Common, a park in South London with a reputation for gay cruising and drug dealing. Famously describing the encounter as a "moment of madness", Davies initially claimed to have been mugged by Fearon after driving him and two of his friends to Brixton but later gave conflicting accounts of the incident. Fearon was charged for the mugging but the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charge due to a lack of evidence. Fearon later accused Davies of using him to link up to a gay prostitute, accusations which Davies denied.

The scandal ultimately led Davies to come out of the closet as bisexual in 1999, and also triggered the "outing" of other cabinet ministers by the press. Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson was outed during the scandal, as was cabinet minister Nick Brown. The Sun ran a headline alleging the existence of a "gay mafia running Britain" among the background of what appeared to be a moral panic about homosexuality, though a poll by The Guardian showed that most respondents thought homsexuality was morally acceptable.

Run-up to the incident
The night-time incident occured on Monday, 26 October 1998. Ron Davies is believed to have arrived at the Welsh Office in Cardiff sometime between 8:00am and shortly after 8:15am earlier that day. Davies remained in Cardiff until at least lunch-time before departing for the Vale of Glamorgan, where he opened a leisure centre close to Hensol at 1:00pm before returning to his home in Draethen. He phoned his senior staff and told them that he would drive directly to his flat in Berwick Street in Battersea, South London, and departed in his personal car, a gold 1990 Ford Granada, at 2:30pm. He reportedly arrived in South London at around 6:00pm, parking his car two or so roads from the flat in Berwick Street before walking one mile away to Clapham Common, a large triangular park in South London. Two votes in the House of Commons had been scheduled for that night, the first at 7:00pm and the second at 11:00pm, with Labour MPs subject to a three-line whip. Davies phoned the Whips' Office earlier that day to ask for permission to abstain from the night's votes, telling them that he would be late to London because of the personal and political toll of the weekend; his home in Caerphilly had been badly affected by flooding which had ocurred across Wales on the Sunday just past. The Whips' Office allowed Davies to abstain from the votes and take the night off; by the time of the first vote at 7:00pm Davies had told Tony Blair that he was three miles away from the House of Commons.

It is believed that Davies encountered Donald Fearon on Clapham Common at 7:45pm. It is not known for certain what happened at the common that night; Davies has refused to give a full explanation about his experiences at the common or why he went there, and the exact circumstances around the incident which followed remains unclear. Davies is known to have given different accounts of the night's events to the prime minister Tony Blair, the House of Commons, the police and to TV interviewers. While Fearon admitted to meeting Davies on the common that night, he also gave a different account of events to what had been claimed by Davies and reported in the press.

Encounter and mugging
In line with Davies' own claims, it is generally agreed that Davies was at Clapham Common where he found himself conversing with an unknown Rastafarian man, accepting an offer from him to go to a house in Brixton. The man was later believed to be Donald Fearon, a 37 year-old homeless black man. Later recounting the events of that night, Davies said the man had approached him on the common and conversed with him "for some minutes" before asking him "to accompany him and two of his friends to his flat for a meal". Davies said he accepted the offer. The men then drove together in Davies' car towards Battersea Park where they took another walk together, as stated by the police. Afterwards, the men drove together to Brixton, where they would pick up the man's friends from the roadside; Davies identified the friends as another male and a female. The female is then believed to have left the car sometime afterwards.

The subsequent events are less clear, with Davies claiming that he was ultimately mugged at knifepoint. It is believed that Davies and the two men drove toward the St Matthews Estate, a 1960s Brixton council estate located less than a mile away and adjacent to Brixton Hill. At the estate, Davies alleged that one of the men reached for the drivers seat and took out a knife, holding it against his throat for "10 or 15 minutes". Davies said he was searched and stripped of his possessions, including two wallets and a mobile phone. According to Davies, the duo also tried to force him to withdraw money from a cash machine and buy alcohol from a liquor store, among other things. The duo allegedly told him to drop off money at an underground car park the next morning, or else they would torch his car. The men left Davies on the side of the road at the estate and drove off with his car, enabling him, he said, to report the incident to the police. According to the police, the alleged mugging occured around the St Matthews Estate in Brixton at around 9:30pm.

Police statement and resignation
Davies arrived at Brixton Police Station at 10:25pm, half a mile away from the scene of the mugging. Some reports, including reports from The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph and The Times, state that Davies initially told the police a different account of the mugging. According to this account, he was ambushed by a gang of three, including a woman, as he parked his car on Brixton Hill near his flat in Battersea.