Aibu to be slightly depressed by the Ched Evans debate?

[BinarySolo]

I feel so angry and upset by the debates going on at the moment. Not so much whether he should be able to play football again, but it seems to be still being debated as to whether or not he's guilty and whether his victim was at fault for being drunk and going back to his hotel room.

Really. Who would ever report a rape? It needs so much evidence just to get to court let alone get a conviction, and then when your attacker is convicted you still have your character questioned and people speculating about whether it was really rape.

Not to mention idiots like Judy Finnigan stating that his crime wasn't that bad because it wasn't violent and the victim 'wasn't physically harmed'.

FFS. No wonder we need ad campaigns explaining what rape is.

I didn't report my rape.

I tried. But the police sneered at me and asked what I was wearing. Jeans and a Marilyn Manson hoodie, if anyone's interested.

You can't report a rape in this country. You'd be dragged through the press, called a liar and accused of being drunk/dressing provocatively/being out alone/etc.

Victims are blamed.

We also have a hideous 'celebrity' thing where you seem to get away with stuff if you're famous. Rolf Harris.

That cunt Finnigan proved that yesterday.

I don't tend to get that worked up over things on Loose Women/Daily Fail that you know are being said/written to get ratings, and clearly not intelligent debate....but what Judy Finnegan said my made me so furious.

And it breaks my heart to hear your account, King.

king I am so sorry you went through that. I hope you have managed to find some inner peace.

Something in this case that I don't understand is how two people were accused of the same crime. One was acquitted and the other found guilty?
I think that this shows how inconsistent the prosecution and legal justice of rape is.

Quote from The Guardian here:

'Alarmed that her drink had been spiked, the woman asked the hotel to view its CCTV footage. When this request was refused, she went to police who traced the room to Evans and McDonald. Both claimed that they had had sex with the woman but that it was consensual. However, the Crown Prosecution Service took a different view. It was the prosecution’s case that the woman was too drunk to consent to sex with either man. At the conclusion to the trial, McDonald was acquitted, while Evans was convicted of rape. The judge told him: “As the jury have found, she was in no condition to have sexual intercourse. When you arrived at the hotel, you must have realised that.”'

Oh king I'm so sorry to hear that. Bloody awful.

Jewels, I'm not one to be annoyed by tv but Judy had me swearing at her yesterday. Her opinions were do irresponsible and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just said for effect.

Twitter is full of idiots saying that because she was drunk/on drugs and willingly went back to the hotel room it can't be rape. I got into an argument with one of them who kept asking me if I physically say yes every time I have sex. My response was, if you don't 'physically say no' then is it not rape? What if the woman was passed out? Does that mean it's not possible to rape an unconscious woman?

It scares me that people hold these views.

No wonder she had to change her identity with all this victim blaming going on. No Yanbu, just shows that times haven't really changed that much

I see your point secret, but why does that mean Ched is innocent rather than McDonald being guilty.

If she was so drunk she could remember which room she was in or who with then I would say she was too drunk to consent to sex. Therefore it would be rape.

Also the Ched supporters are saying she was on drink/drugs like she was a recreational user not that she'd had her drink tampered with as that report suggests.

binary I agree with you. It also shows how open to interpretation these cases are. Same crime, same evidence and yet two different outcomes. Surely either they are both guilty or both innocent?

Should read...'But is shows'

Arggh 'But it shows...'

I guess a different jury was used for both men. It's frustrating. I think the law needs making clearer, but I think they'll always be grey areas.

Having spoken to a friend who is a detective about rape cases generally about how much evidence they need to even get into a court room and even then there's little chance of a conviction. So to go through all that and still have so many people doubt you... It's just seriously depressing.

And it breaks my heart to hear your account, King.

Ah, don't feel bad for me. Feel bad for the poor girl who's having her name soiled by the twats on TV who think she's somehow to blame because she'd had a few drinks.

Do we even know that her drinks weren't spiked?

Just can't stand the blame culture. "Ooo, she had a short skirt on. Of course the poor man couldn't resist."

Having adverts on television reminding men not to rape people doesn't help. Fucking stupid. They should know. 99% of them do.

What's next? Adverts reminding us not to push people down stairs??

My friend lives in India and posted a picture of a 'don't rape' street sign there! I assumed it was lost in translation but no, it was a genuine sign to remind men.

Just caught the end of Julia Hartley-Brewer's discussion on LBC radio about this case. She was trotting out her usual "just saying, if you go out and get blind drunk and you're wearing heels ......" type rubbish,when a brilliant caller came on at the end and wiped the floor with her. To paraphrase, as the caller said, the reason the woman got raped wasn't because she was drunk and in a hotel room, but because she was in a room with a rapist.

I think only Evans was found guilty because the woman had agreed to go back to the hotel room with McDonald who then texted Evans to tell him where he was - the latter then came down and joined him. The jury seemed to think that her having sex with McDonald must have been consensual because she went back to his hotel room with him

That's the only distinction I can make between the actions of the two men, anyway.

I think what is also interesting is that in the initial statement the victim didn't say she had been raped, it was only after the men were questioned and said they both had sex with her that the charge of rape was made by the police.
I am not at all disagreeing with them being charged but makes me wonder if this had been Joe Bloggs if that charge would have been made?
As with kings horrific account earlier, I have read similar stories in which the victim has been told there was no case to answer where there was often much more evidence than in this case.
I think there needs to be a stronger clarification of the system and procedure when an allegation of rape is made, as it doesn't seem to be consistent at all, which is unjust to both the victim and any wrongly accused rapist.

I'm depresed by it too op. I'm haunted by drink spiked rapes years later. No chance of my even reporting it at the time. Fucking appalling the victim should go through all this, no doubt re traumatizing her as I type.

BinarySolo No, it was the same jury. They convicted one and acquitted the other. Obviously the evidence was different in respect of them, hers and theirs, and in the case of the other man the jury were not satisfied behond reasonable doubt.

I don't understand the two different verdicts from the same jury either. As far as I can see there was CCTV evidence that the woman was so drunk as to be incapacitated. Presumably the evidence was from before she entered the room with McDonald, so clearly she was not competent to agree to go to his room in the first place (not to even go into the further argument that agreeing to go into someone's room does not mean agreeing to have sex with them!).

It is at least clear that the jury were not celebrity-dazzled or on a crusade against rape or actuated by misogyny or misandry - they could not have come to different verdicts if they were. We are going to have to accept that the evidence against one did and against the other did not satisfy them beyond reasonable doubt.

andrewofgg The second defendant is a much less known footballer but I agree with the other parts.
Does anyone know what the difference in the evidence was?

TheSecretCervix - If the other man was less well-known but they cquitted him and convicted Evans that backs up the idea that they were not celebrity-dazzled!

I don't know what the difference in the evidence was.

Rape in law isn't just the act of penetration and the lack of consent but also what is in the mind of the man; whether he knew she wasn't consenting. So, I would assume that the difference in verdict is because the jury thought the first man believed she was consenting, even though she was not, but the second man didn't honestly believe she was consenting, because he just turned up in the room and had sex with her when she was passed out drunk.

Poor woman, all this time later still having people doubt her.

Poor girl :( agree thar Judy finnigan is an insufferable intolerable idiot.
Im so shovked that a woman with a daughter roughly the same age could even go there