• 7 hours ago
• Posted in:Assault/Wounding, Criminal damage/vandalism, Domestic violence, Public Decency Offences, Rape / Sexual Assault, Sexual Offences, Stalking/harrassment/threats, Violent Offences
• 0
• Author: Thomas Gradgrind
• Tags: AB/DL, Aged 30-39, Aged 40-49, Aged 50-59, Alcohol, Autogynephilia, Cross dresser, Crossdressing while offending, Domestic abuse/violence, England, Female victim, Fetish, Gay victim, HMP Hewell, Law enforcement victim, Male victim, Media puff piece, Mental health, Multiple victims, Narcissistic rage, Partner victim, Pornography, Prisoner victim, Psychosis, Relationship break-up, Reoffended soon after conviction, Repeat offender, Suicide, Threatened suicide, Trans woman, Transvestite, West Mercia Police, Worcestershire

Arthur David/Davina Canning (aka David Canning), a violent male who identified as a transgender woman, was remanded into custody in July 2023 to await sentencing at HMP Hewell (a men’s prison in Worcestershire) after admitting violent offences. The police had attended Canning’s home because his husband had reported being subjected to domestic violence. Canning then assaulted a police officer and was arrested.

While at HMP Hewell, Canning’s behaviour was euphemistically described as ‘difficult and challenging’. In fact Canning, aged 59 and from Evesham, Worcs, had waged a campaign of obnoxious, violent and sexually abusive behaviour since arriving including abusing, threatening and spitting on staff and other prisoners, vandalising and flooding his cell and misusing the emergency call bell for attention repeatedly all night so none of the other prisoners could sleep for days on end. He was also undergoing disciplinary procedures for repeatedly exposing his penis and masturbating at female prison officers, and threatened suicide/feigned injury when not given what he demanded, whether it was a TV, a new phone to replace the one he smashed, staff to talk to, painkillers, his cell door open, to move to another wing etc, etc. 

Canning was found dead from a self-inflicted injury in his cell on 29 July 2023. The Prisons & Probation Ombudsmen report (categorised as a “female” prisoner) can be read here. Canning had most recently been released from prison the previous year in June 2022 for unknown offences, and evidently had a long history of convictions for violent offending, often connected to alcohol abuse/mental ill health.

News reports located online date back to 2002 and were similar to the 2023 offending e.g. convictions for affray, public order offences, criminal damage to a police car and cell, and two counts of threats to kill, all connected to a police callout after Canning had violently abused his then boyfriend and then threw knives at police officers. Earlier that same year Canning was convicted of being drunk and disorderly after causing a disruption in Evesham town centre and then violently threatening police sent to arrest him. Canning was also incarcerated in 2016 for unknown offences and in 2012 was again convicted at Worcester Magistrates Court of being drunk and disorderly, this time outside a nightclub at 3am while dressed in women’s clothing, becoming belligerent when people laughed after he fell over. In 2005 the local paper published an article on Canning’s civil partnership to a local councillor being the first in the area – see also the case of trans-identified male John/Joanna Rowland-Stuart whose civil partnership to the man he later killed was similarly covered by a local paper.

Canning ran several grubby NSFW X/Twitter accounts (archived here and here – be warned, they include nudity) which seem to exist solely to send endless suggestive replies to porn accounts (right up until he was arrested in July 2023) and where he variously described himself as a sissy and an adult baby, with accompanying repellent images. 

Media reports

Evesham Journal https://www.eveshamjournal.co.uk/news/25138721.report-death-transgender-prisoner-hmp-hewell/  archive

Evesham Journal https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/7819231.gay-couple-first-to-marry-in-the-vale/  archive

Evesham Journal https://www.eveshamjournal.co.uk/news/9577563.mockery-angered-cross-dresser-47/  archive

Evesham Journal https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/7675033.abuse-victim-in-attack-on-police/  archive

Worcester News https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/7688879.drunken-man-in-threat-to-police/  archive