Other incidents
On 30 May 1987, he had entered a fish and chip shop on Denmark Street, near Bristol Hippodrome, and had told a policeman, Paul Cox, in the queue 'I have been drinking. Are you going to nick me?' He was subsequently caught in his Jaguar vehicle, with 72 mg of alcohol per millilitre in his blood, twice the legal limit. He said that his wife was arriving to pick him up, and that he had only driven a few yards. The couple had recently returned from two weeks in Barbados. When aged 33, living on Lansdown Place in Bristol with Alison Holloway, he was convicted of drink driving, banned for three years and fined £300 on 5 August 1987 at Bristol court.
In December 2002, Davidson was asked by the manager of the Marriott Bristol Royal Hotel to leave the premises, after it was alleged that he had become confrontational and abusive to staff. Davidson later said that when he was asked by the manager to leave he thought it was a joke, stating: "It's difficult to be abusive when they don't speak English."
In October 2003, Davidson refused to go on stage in Plymouth because his request for wheelchair users in the front row to be moved to other areas was declined. A spokesman for the Plymouth Pavilions, where he was performing as part of a national tour, said: "Jim Davidson apparently took exception to a number of wheelchair users in the front stalls of the Pavilions Arena. Mr Davidson cited the fact that a proportion of his act was aimed at disabled customers and that he would be unable to perform under these circumstances". In a statement Davidson explained he "took the mick" out of everyone in the front row of his shows. "As all the people in the front row were in wheelchairs I feared it would appear I was specifically targeting disabled people. I asked if just some would mind moving. Much of my act depends upon audience reaction and in fact one part of the show involves getting the audience to gang up against the front row".
Laurence Clark, a wheelchair user, performed a show called "The Jim Davidson Guide to Equality" in response to Davidson's act at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2004. Clark stated that he would refuse to perform the show if Davidson himself was in his audience.
In August 2004, comedian Jimmy Carr threatened legal action against Davidson, accusing him of having plagiarised some of his comic material. Davidson responded by saying the claims were "ridiculous", and no further action was taken.
In October 2006, Davidson was accused by a woman of making insensitive jokes about people with cancer, blind people, a wheelchair user, and the recent trial over the killing of Damilola Taylor, prompting the woman to walk out of the show. Davidson vehemently denied the accusations, stating that jokes about blind people and people with cancer would have merited a "mass walkout." He also said the comments about the Damilola Taylor trial were taken out of context: "My actual remark was that I thought the killers should be locked away forever. And if she objects to that then that is her prerogative." Davidson was also quoted as saying: "If what I was saying was true, I would have got up and left myself."
Davidson was called on as a character witness to drug trafficker Brian Brendan Wright in 2007. Despite Davidson's testifying to Wright's character, the judge concluded that Wright was "a master criminal, manipulative, influential and powerful", and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
On 2 January 2013, as Davidson was set to become a housemate in the 11th series of Celebrity Big Brother, he was arrested at Heathrow Airport by police officers working on Operation Yewtree. On 20 March 2013, he was arrested again over new allegations of sexual offences; however, on 21 August 2013, it was announced that no further action would be taken in relation to the allegations of historic sex abuse, due to insufficient evidence.
In November 2018, Davidson told Nigel Farage on LBC radio that he had been angered by Extinction Rebellion protests in London as the traffic had almost prevented him "from getting his pie and mash".
