Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be worried about the Ched Evans threads on here

836 replies

corkysgran · 08/01/2015 06:33

Sorry but this does seem like a witchunt to me. Many of the posters (who have signed the petition) obviously have little knowledge of the case. At one point a poster said Sports Direct would withdraw sponsorship if Evans was NOT signed and immediately others were vowing to boycott. Laughable and shows the level of thought before clicking. Online justice and the court of public opinion, not for me. As for expecting football, an industry corrupt from the very top (Sepp Blatter) and inherently sexist, to show any moral stance, get real.

OP posts:
Jessica85 · 09/01/2015 19:46

Just tried to have a reasoned discussion with DP (football mad and a season ticket holder) about this. Apparently 'GT has always been a knobhead' and he's 'glad CE is crap at football cos I don't want to give up my season ticket' and 'the idea of cheering a rapist who isn't even sorry is just fucking ridiculous'. Hopefully attitudes like DPs might mean that the PFA and FA will (eventually) take a stand.

ChocLover2015 · 09/01/2015 22:37

I can't understand why the other guy having sex with her was found to be consensual but with CE wasn't?

Jessica85 · 09/01/2015 22:47

Choc, nobody will know for sure except those on the jury. I personally think it has to do with 'reasonable belief' about consent being given. Perhaps the jury felt CM had reasonable belief because he had been with her for an hour before sex, but CE didn't because he had only been with her a matter of minutes.

ChocLover2015 · 09/01/2015 22:49

Did she claim they had both raped her, then?

HouseWhereNobodyLives · 09/01/2015 22:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

AuntieStella · 09/01/2015 22:55

Choclover2015

I suggest you read the footylaw link (a few posts earlier). That should answer your questions, and though written by experts on the basis of the legal case summaries, it's in plan language.

Viviennemary · 09/01/2015 22:58

I must say I can see the argument that it is an unsafe conviction. The girl can't remember whether she consented or not and CE thinks she consented.So how can a jury know if the two people involved one says they can't remember and the other says consent was given which of course might have been a lie. And also why does the jury assume consent with the other man just because she went back to a hotel room. I thought that wasn't supposed to imply consent and nor should it. I think others should have been prosecuted that night. People taking photographs. That was also criminal.

MrsJackAubrey · 09/01/2015 22:59

I think justice should like in our judicial system, and our systems says you can go back to work after a rape conviction.

The problem is the short sentences handed out for rape. Far far too often sentences are offensively short.

If he'd done say 10 years, he'd be too old to play professional football and would have therefore to get another job. And that would be fair enough.

It is the wider messages that shit short sentences give to rapists, other men, and the survivors of rape, that we should be objecting to, not one individual.

Jessica85 · 09/01/2015 23:00

She didn't claim anyone had raped her. She had no recollection of having sex at all. She went to the police because she woke up in a strange hotel room, naked, having urinated in the bed, with no handbag and no memory of what had happened.

The rape accusation did not come from the victim.

From what I understand, police / CPS decided to charge both CM and CE with rape based on their account of what happened, along with CCTV, other witnesses to how drunk she was, and the witnesses trying to film it from the window.

I think (and I may be wrong) that, regardless of consent (or ability to consent) a person may mount a defence based on 'reasonable belief that consent is given'.

Jessica85 · 09/01/2015 23:06

Vivienne, it wasn't a case of he said / she said. It was based on the fact that it is possible to be too drunk to consent to sex.

The jury decided that she was too drunk to consent to sex, and that he also had no reasonable belief that consent had been given.

If anyone chooses not to believe that the jury reached a reasonable verdict based on the evidence provided to court, that is their opinion. Two attempted appeals have been rejected. So he has mounted a third attempt at appeal. As it stands, in law, he is guilty of rape.

Viviennemary · 09/01/2015 23:10

I'm not saying he's innocent but the point is if the argument is she was too drunk to consent to sex with one man she was too drunk to consent to sex with the other man. The whole episode is way beneath the standard of behaviour you would expect from any civilised human being. I will say that.

AuntieStella · 09/01/2015 23:17

"I'm not saying he's innocent but the point is if the argument is she was too drunk to consent to sex with one man she was too drunk to consent to sex with the other man."

That is true (and probably what the jury decided). But that does not mean identical verdicts should be returned. There is a however a defence, if the man reasonably believed (by word or action) that the complainant had consented. And each defendant was (correctly) considered separately, because they did different things that night.

merrymouse · 09/01/2015 23:22

I think the point was that she entered the hotel room with one man. The other one broke into the room, having never met her before (unless you count stepping over her in a kebab shop) and immediately started to have sex while his mates attempted to film him through a window.

Jessica85 · 09/01/2015 23:22

Vivienne, because juries don't have to explain verdicts we will probably never know for sure. But you can read the legal judgements online. Some of these contain lots and lots of detail into the case.

In the end, I reckon depends on if you believe:
A) the police, CPS, judge and jury in the original case, plus those reviewing the case (twice) got it right; or
B) Ched Evans and his friends got it right.

Given that CE and his friends all gave evidence to the police, CPS, judge and jury, and their evidence was reviewed by those looking into the potential to appeal, I believe A. Of course, if new evidence was presented that all the people in A didn't have access to, I might change my mind.

Jux · 09/01/2015 23:29

VivienneMary, do read the footylaw link footylaw.co.uk/2015/01/06/ched-evans-sifting-facts-from-fiction/ as it answers your question very clearly.

MrsJackAubrey, I agree with you about short sentences, but that is mentioned in the footylaw link too.

merrymouse · 09/01/2015 23:29

I also don't think that entering a hotel room implies consent - but there wasn't enough additional witness and circumstantial evidence in the first instance to show beyond reasonable doubt that there wasn't consent.

Jux · 09/01/2015 23:35

Yes, merrymouse, and as the jury acquitted the other footballingjerk we know that's what the jury thought. They'd have convicted him too otherwise.

CattyCatCat · 10/01/2015 00:03

Most of us just aren't that into supporting convicted rapists. Funny that. Yabu.

BOFster · 10/01/2015 00:19

I don't think that it hinged on whether the victim had the capacity to consent- the jury clearly thought she didn't- but rather that the jury decided that CM reasonably believed she had consented. Or at least there was sufficient doubt that he didn't believe that to be the case for them to feel they had to acquit him. The same could not be said of CE, who effectively broke into the room with the express intention of 'having sex' before obtaining consent, and that he couldn't possibly have reasonably believed that consent was present, given her condition and the short time between him arriving and committing the rape.

That's my understanding of it anyway.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 10/01/2015 00:39

I'm sure I read somewhere that the footage CE's brother and mate took through the window showed that she was unconscious when CE had sex with her. It was the footage that caused the police to charge them wasn't it?

rootypig · 10/01/2015 05:49

Vivienne you have absolutely no grasp of what the crime of rape consists of. It is the act of penetration (by the penis) without reasonable belief in consent.

The jury in this case has decided that the first defendant, who was prosecuted for rape, let us not forget, so the CPS did feel that he might be guilty of the offence, in fact had formed a reasonable belief in consent. This presumably in large part based on the complainant choosing to return to the hotel with him. The jury also decided that defendant B, Ched Evans, could NOT have formed a reasonable belief in consent (and the standard is objective, i.e. what would the right thinking person have thought in this situation), because he let himself into the hotel room, quite conceivably without her consent or knowledge, and then proceeded to have sex with her when she was not in a fit state to give consent.

It really is perfectly clear, if you take forty five seconds to familiarise yourself with the law.

rootypig · 10/01/2015 05:56

As for his conviction being 'unsafe'. This will be the case (and there will be grounds for appeal under the Appeal Act 1995) essentially where there is bad evidence or an error of law. Your analysis does not go to either of these things. Hmm

rootypig · 10/01/2015 06:12

Do you know, just ignore me. I am massively grumpy and premenstrual. And though I still disagree with you, Vivienne, I apologise for being so rude about it. Flowers

Jux · 10/01/2015 13:47

You could as well argue that CM's conviction is unsafe/the jury is wrong etc. CM's acquittal hinges on the well-worn excuse "what did she expect? Tea and biscuits?" when she went to his room. She may have simply expected a comfortable and warm place in which to eat her pizza and some interesting/amusing conversation.

In the bad old days when I was growing up ("you were wearing a short skirt so what did you expect?"), I would sometimes invite someone in for coffee. I meant coffee. Had a few close shaves, doing that.

AnyFucker · 10/01/2015 13:47

talking about grumpy (although I think you were perfectly polite and justified, rooty), is anyone else actually dreading socialising this weekend because of the amount of uneducated and ignorant shit that you hear on this subject ?