To be totally baffled (Ched Evans related)

[soapboxqueen]

Just reading in the guardian that Ched Evans has applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to review his case. That's fine because it is part of our due process and legal system.

However, in the article it points out that his girlfriend's father is paying for appeal barristers, private detectives and even offering a reward for information in order to help his appeal. Why would you do that? Why would you put up so much money to protect a person who at best (from their perspective at least) cheated on your daughter in a rather deplorable fashion and at worst a rapist? Why would got want your daughter to be with such a person?

I really don't understand.

I'll see if I can get the link to work.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/18/legal-watchdog-fast-tracks-ched-evans-rape-inquiry

I assume it is because it's what the girl has requested? If Daddy, the millionaire, wants to make his princess happy, then Daddy will do so.

Lots of people forgive partners who have a ONS - which is how Princess is viewing it.

Some gremlin means there's a duplicate thread (you might want to ask MNHQ if they'll delete the other so you don't get split responses?)

This is what I posted on the one I saw first:

"Am I right in saying that fresh trial can be ordered if new evidence comes to light that could not reasonably have been available at original trial? (Presumably what the sleuthing and reward bit is about).

"And that the review body is a totally separate thing, and is looking for grounds arising from the conduct of the original trial that for legal reasons need looking at again?"

I've already reported the double posting. I've no idea why it did that.

I'm not sure about having a retrial. I think they can quash the conviction and then the cps would decide whether to persue again.

This is your answer it in the text of the article you linked to

In July, Evans’s lawyers submitted fresh evidence to the CCRC. “We have uncovered a number of issues that the jury at Ched’s trial didn’t hear,” said Russ Whitfield, the private detective hired by Massey. Massey said: “I’m lucky enough to be able to afford a proper legal team. But I am not a fool. At the end of the day I stand by him, not his morality, because he was 100% wrongly convicted.”

As far as I know, there wouldn't be a retrial, but they could quash the conviction.

Some men are so invested in believing that ordinary "decent" men aren't rapists that they are unable to see blatant evidence in front of their faces. I imagine from a dad's point of view it's easier to go all out to prove your daughter's bf's innocence than to accept that she is in love with and seeing a sexual predator, who, like most other sexual predators, appears to be an ordinary person.

Shame the young woman victim in all this can't afford a proper legal team, because I gather (yes it was the DM), that because her name was exposed online she has actually had to move away and assume a new identity because everyone in her home town knows who she is. And she was being further victimised because of it.

And yet the trolls who did it and heaped hideous abuse on her haven't been prosecuted.

So whatever the outcome, she has lost everything.

She is incredibly brave to have stuck with the prosecution in spite of the appalling treatment she was given by the press and Evans' family and friends. Rather than being forced to hide she should be feted as a role model for women everywhere. She has stood up for herself in the face of the most disgusting misogyny seen in a long time.

Why would you put up so much money to protect a person who at best (from their perspective at least) cheated on your daughter in a rather deplorable fashion and at worst a rapist? Why would got want your daughter to be with such a person?

I know of someone whose BF was accused of rape and subsequently acquitted. It boiled down to the victim's agreement or not (and there were others involved).

I agree, even if it was consensual (in this case, she wasn't drunk), who would want to be with someone who could behave like that? Vile behaviour. These G/Fs need to find some self-esteem from somewhere and some decent partners.

Exactly my thoughts Nanny0gg

If both denied raping her and said she consented, why was only one man convicted

Because there was more evidence against one.

If both denied raping her and said she consented, why was only one man convicted

because the men's behaviour was different one went with her to the hotel room but Ched joined them there later after she had been plied with more alcohol.

Ffs, this is not 'trashy sleb gossip', this is a convicted rapist we're talking about and a young woman who has had to move away from her family and friends, change her identity and has been continually harassed online.

If you don't know about it, go and find out about it - there's plenty on MN alone with a thread running right now regarding Judy Finnigan's disgusting remarks last week - but don't dismiss it as 'trashy sleb gossip'. We're not talking about the Kardashian's.

I think that the jury believed that the first man could have reasonably assumed that she consented, whereas, the rapist, Ched Evans, turned up midway and asked the first man if he could 'have a go' on an unconscious woman.

I think that it's a risky precedent to set that if you consent to one man then you de facto consent to any random pals too. Not that I'm convinced that she either did, or was capable of giving consent to the first man, but if a person did consent, then it can't make either the first man a rapist, or the subsequent men to be not rapists.

There maybe should be an argument that even if she did consent to the first man, then it wasn't informed consent, given that he, unbeknownst to her, had invited the rapist Ched Evans over to rape her. He picked her up with the intention of sharing her. Had she known that, and been capable of consent, would she have given it?

The jury came to the conclusion that because she voluntarily went back to the hotel room with McDonald, he could reasonably believe she consented. However, McDonald contacted Evans without her knowledge and he came to the room without her permission. She didn't agree to go back to the room with two men, as far as she was concerned she was going with one man and then another turned up out of the blue, specifically to have sex with her. Even if she hadn't been drunk that would have been an extremely threatening situation for a young woman.
Also, his brother and friend, who were watching through the window, tried to record him having sex with her on their phones. The evidence pointed to McDonald hooking up with her and Evans taking advantage of the situation in order to rape her. McDonald was a shithead for taking such a drunk girl to his room but he seemed to be within the bounds of the law. Evans, on the other hand, turned up to use the girl as though she was some blowup doll. He is a despicable piece of filth.

No one would care or talk about it if it didn't have the s'leb element. It wouldn't have even made the local rag. People certainly wouldn't be crying out for the bin man to not get his job back in they way they are about a footballer. Regrettably it is the s'leb factor which makes it news worthy.

That, my friends, is a sad indictment on the values in society.

The people who named the victim were prosecuted Nanny here. Obviously they should have got a heftier punishment imo.

Why wasnt the original bloke prosecuted for incitement to rape? He procured the offence.

I somehow doubt a local council would be offering to re-employ a bin man who had been convicted of rape.

I'm pretty sure that the 'bin man' would not have had his job put on hold with his local council while he served 2 years for rape.

I don't think he'd have had his wages paid while he was in prison either. Or come out of prison to a hero's welcome and a big party.