To be worried about the Ched Evans threads on here

[corkysgran]

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.

"I don't personally believe that the case has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. It's a surprisingly high test (to my mind) and even a half-competent brief should be able to introduce the requisite amount of doubt in a Jury's mind."

So it's his lawyers fault - you think they were incompetent?
Or was it the jury's fault?

Malice it seems you have little concept of what rape or consent actually is.

Thisishow But your "starting point" seems to be that Jurys/the legal system in infallible - that's just not a view I share.

My instinct says that in all likliehood the Jury was wrong - rather than the brief was incompetent. It's just my opinion though, and is not really of any consequence.

I absolutely understand what 'rape' and 'consent' is.

Just becasue I don't share the' near-universal' view on here doesn't mean that I don't understand. There are many more like me who have misgivings about this case (and the subsequent fall out) but that lack the courage of their convictions to espress them.

The indisputable facts in Evan's case convicted him, including his own testimony.

The booking the room (that neither he or his friends ended up staying in), the turning around his taxi, allowing his brother and friend to film through the window, lying to gain access to the room, entering the room without knocking, leaving via fire escape.

^all that speaks volumes about his plans that night - and whether the woman consented or not, or was even capable of consenting, was not high on his list of worries. The two men didn't even agree on who asked who for consent iirc.

Other witnesses and cctv evidence showed how drunk the victim was. The victim's own evidence/lack of memory/behaviour afterwards attested to how drunk she was.

In malice's defence, I know several people in real life who struggle wit the conviction for the exact same reasons that she does, and none of them are 'rape apologists'. I guess it's just because there is no 'physical' concrete proof or something?

But many cases are convicted in this way - if all cases had to be proved to a standard of absolute, universal, smash the theory of falsification, truth, then here would be no need for judges or juries or anything. The decision wood be made automatically.

Someone gave a good example upthread about a theft case - if someone stole a car and their only defence was that they were going to give it back in 6 months, then they would still be convicted even though it couldn't be proven beyond all possible doubt that the were lying.

A judge and jury heard a of the evidence and decided that it was proven beyond reasonable doubt, that there was just no wa that Evans could have had reasonable belief in her consent.

Argh typos - fucking phone!

Malice, genuine question: why do you think the jury, which heard every scrap of the evidence, is likely to be wrong based on what you've read online?

Why is it more likely that CE's legal team screwed up in not introducing reasonable doubt, than that actually there wasn't one to raise?

IIRC, CE and CM managed to get themselves prosecuted for rape in the first place. The complainant seems to have had no idea whether she'd had sexual activity the next morning. She only went to the police to report her handbag missing. During the process of retrieving it, didn't police officers interview the pair of them and think their accounts sounded rather like rape?

The most skilled barrister can only work with the materials s/he has.

What it really comes down to is that people have no real business "struggling" with the verdict when it's been decided in court on actual evidence and points of law. Just because they don't like or understand that doesn't mean they should be listened to.

P.S. the above is absolutely shocking on the part of Evans and MacDonald, before it's even considered from the consent point of view.

If she'd become pregnant (and CE certainly didn't have time for a discussion of contraception methods), she would have had no idea who the father was. If she'd developed an STI, she would have been unable to contact them to notify them that they could be infected, either as the source, or through having been a subsequent partner to her after activity with the person who infected her.

I don't start from the standpoint of believing the criminal justice is perfect. But given that it is heavily weighted against rape victims I have no reason to disagree with a decision by a jury who heard all the evidence and convicted ched Evans largely from his own testimony.

I wonder if those "struggling with the verdict" are starting to think back on their own behaviour and seeing instances of them doing exactly the same or similar themselves.

I do know that every man I have encountered who claims CE should not have been convicted marks himself out to me as someone who does not grasp the concept of female bodily autonomy and therefore is to be avoided.

And I might add that Lord Judge, the last Lord Chief Justice - the most senior judge in England and Wales, and generally agreed to be one of the finest legal minds of his generation - refused leave to appeal because he thought the conviction sound.

You'd surely have to be extraordinarily arrogant to think that counts for less than Stuff People Reckon on the interweb.

What it really comes down to is that people have no real business "struggling" with the verdict when it's been decided in court on actual evidence and points of law. Just because they don't like or understand that doesn't mean they should be listened to.

No, but I do think that people are interested in this case for reasons other than that they are 'rape apologists'. I dont know, maybe its all the tv shows with the forensic evidence and the like mean that many people don't really know how our criminal justice system actual works.

And people are allowed to Give their opinions on why they do not agree with the verdict (as they would be allowed to in any court case) and we are allowed to continue to challenge them on it and correct various points.

The vast majority of people questioning to verdict a) were not in court and b) know relatively little about the criminal justice. All these people talking about his conviction being overturned are highly highly likely to be wrong. But as in any court case, they are allowed to give their opinion in a reasoned way, and actually the more discussion had on this the better actually, as just on these threads there are posters who have (or at least say they have!) changed their mind.

yep, some people's reactions to this case do assist quite nicely when assessing the level of future meaningful interaction you wish to have with them

Will, I do see your your point, but this is exhausting now.

Anyfucker I couldn't agree more.

To those people who are struggling with the "inconsistency" in the sentencing, the Lord Chief Justice said this in the appeal:

^It was open to the jury to consider, as it seems to us, that even if the complainant did not, in fact, consent to sexual intercourse with either of the
two men, that in the light of his part in what happened the meeting in the street and so on McDonald may reasonably have believed that the complainant had consented to sexual activity with him, and at the same time concluded that the applicant knew perfectly well that she had not consented to sexual activity with him (the applicant). The circumstances in which each of
the two men came to be involved in the sexual activity was quite different; so indeed were the circumstances in which they left her. These seem to us to be matters entirely open to the jury. There is no inconsistency.^

There is an inconsistency here though and it is that McDonald should have been charged as a party to the rape by Evans however that was not alleged. Perhaps that would have made it easier for some to understand.

Those who say "how can she have been too drunk to consent to McDonald but not too drunk to consent to Evans" are missing the point, as others have pointed out. She was too drunk to consent to either of them but a conviction requires that the accused reasonably believes she consented. On that point, the difference between the two men could not be more clear. She was raped by both men in that two men had sex with her without valid consent. One of them was acquitted (as so many men are when the woman is drunk) because the criminal conviction requires the prosecution to prove he did not have a reasonable belief that she was consenting.

So many people don't seem to understand that rape is not an offence where one of the parties must be lying. The woman may be telling the truth that she didn't consent or she may have been too drunk to consent and the man may be telling the truth that he believed she did consent. The standard of proof required to achieve a conviction (proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a lack of reasonable belief) combined with rape myths about women lying, a default of consent (very evident on this thread), how rape victims should behave etc. are part of the reason why it's so difficult to get convictions, even for men who are not lionised, rich footballers with lots of money for lawyers.

There are a number of MNers who seem to lack the capacity to understand that people might not agree with their own opinion.It is not down to a lack of knowledge of the facts , stupidity, being rape apologists.It is just that they have come to a different conclusion.I really think they ought to work on this.It will win them no friends!

It is not down to a lack of knowledge of the facts , stupidity, being rape apologists.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

i dont need rape apologists as friends.

ChocLover if you are aware of the facts as presented in the evidence given by Evans and McDonald (i.e. you believe their own version of events) and you understand what the Lord Chief Justice said about the differences between how the two men came to be involved in the sexual activity, you cannot say, as you did:

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

Did she claim they had both raped her, then?

I can't understand how she had teh capacity to consent to CM and then a few minutes later lacked capacity.They are either both guilty or neither

This isn't just a different conclusion. If you have only heard what some Evans fan down the pub has said about the case, that might be one thing. But you can't claim to have read the judgement and reached a considered opinion that supports your conclusion. The judge has spelled out the answers to your questions so you can't even use lack of knowledge of the law (as opposed to facts) as your excuse. So why are you not getting it?

I'm pretty certain, having read the court reports, that I'd have returned a 'not guilty'; my standard being higher than 'on the balance of probability'

What exactly have you read, Malice? Have you seen full transcripts plus all the documents and heard all the recordings that the jury saw and heard? Even if you have done all of that, would I be right in thinking you haven't had the advantage of actually being in court and seeing the witnesses' demeanour and how they sounded in giving evidence? On what basis do you think you know better than the jury and the highly experienced judge who said in pronouncing sentence that he had no doubt that the victim was extremely intoxicated and unable to consent?

The problem is, ChocLover, that you haven't, despite being invited to do so, actually produced any factual basis for your opinion. I could come on here and say that in my opinion there are pink elephants flying in the sky, but people are perfectly entitled to disagree with that opinion unless I produce some pretty good evidence.