Ched Evans verdict

[FreshwaterSelkie]

to continue the discussion as the previous thread closed.

They can't use the fact she was out of it, sick etc against Evans when they didn't use it against consent in macdonalds case.

She got into a taxi with McDonald. She went back to his hotel room. She may have been very, very drunk, and she may not have consented to sex with him, but the circumstances were not the same.

Does it gobbolino?

A man was recently acquitted because he claimed he tripped and fell into his victim.

I think the chances of justice are slim whether the victim is able to give a detailed account or not. Men are given the benefit of the doubt, rape victims are not.

Didn't read the first trial details but Maybe they didn't convict CE because she was too drunk - maybe in the original trial he was convicted because he didn't prove he had belief in consent.

The addition of the two witnesses, collaborating language that she used in consensual sex then supported his claim that he believed she consented?

I think that was the essential difference buttercup. The two witnesses gave strength to his claim that she was a willing participant - or at least cast enough doubt on the idea that she wasn't that they felt unable to return a guilty verdict.

There is no evidence to show that their opportune appearance wasn't entirely coincidental...

I think that the lack of Macdonalds evidence that she was sick was the issue.
In the first trial he told the receptionist that at the same time ched was alone in the room with the victim, suggesting she was extremely drunk in the room.
This time the jury didn't hear that and the defence barrister made a big deal about how her being pissed in the takeaway didn't mean she was/appeared drunk in the room. There was nothing to counter that and I don't know why.
I'm also interested as to why ched didn't ejaculate. It could be a fit of conscience, as he claims, or could it be he was suddenly turned off by an unconscious, or possibly puking, victim.

I would really like to know why that wasn't included this time.

A man was recently acquitted because he claimed he tripped and fell into his victim.

He was also a millionaire.

Money seems to make a difference.

(as if there wasn't enough of a skew in favour of the rapists).

Woman, I didn't know that: "The evidence is that she showed up at a friends house the next day, crying and shaking because she didn't know what had happened".
The report I read, said she knew nothing. She had to be prompted/told by presumably Police that she had had sex at all.

If I got that wrong, I apologise.

Ob she did say in evidence that she was sore and tender between her legs the next day.

I've never heard that either - is there a link?

Her friend testified to that effect in both trials. There are also texts from her saying she 'felt horrible'. It's been covered in the trial reporting.

She didn't know she'd had sex but she knew something bad had happene - probably rape. She thought she'd been spiked.

Like most victims, she wasn't going to report anything. She only went to the police because she wanted to try and get her handbag back. In reporting the circumstances of the lost handbag, the police picked up (rightly) that this was more than what she'd reported.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/ched-evans-rape-trial-woman-crying-hysterically-hotel-victim-latest-a7349276.html

How anyone who is remotely informed about this can claim she wasn't traumatised is beyond me...

I don't understand how anyone can say she can't be traumatised if she doesn't remember tbh. Do you not think you would be traumatised if you woke up one morning and found that a man you never met had penetrated you during the night?

Exactly.

And the fact that the police picked up on what she wasn't explicitly telling them is a credit to them imo.

Serious question - if you woke up in a strange hotel rom, alone and naked, having wet the bed and with no memory of how you got there... what would you conclude?

Just because she wasn't going to report it (most victims don't) doesn't mean she didn't know damn well that something very bad had happened to her.

I don't think the validity of any crime rests on how well the victim copes with it, and to decide whether or not to pursue a case on that basis would be dangerous. But I suppose that would only apply to rape cases. I can't see anyone saying "Someone stole twenty grand from this millionaire, but they won't miss it, they are hardly traumatised so no point pursuing it". Wouldn't fly.

"I don't think she would have had sex with me two weeks later if she had been raped, she clearly wasn't traumatised enough to be a rape victim" seems to go merrily unchallenged.

Maybe we should only pursue criminals if the victim is traumatised. Let them carry on their crimes until they do really upset someone. Where's the harm.

But the fact she was traumatised was because she didn't remember and was obviously distraught at the thought.

The fact remains that she could still have given a drunk impression that she was willing at the time.

She may have no recollection the next day and be traumatised because of it but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was rape - I suppose that's what the courts felt this time round?

Clearly so.

But the law is an ass. And a misogynist one at that.

Buttercup this is from walesonline's reporting:

The court heard that the alleged victim woke the next morning and felt some pain in her “private parts”.

Mr Medland said she had some “minor visible injuries”.

He added: “She remembers practically nothing of the events of that night and can only piece together some fragments of it.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/ched-evans-rape-trial-footballer-12001362

Link.

I really really REALLY hate the rape apologist logic that someone is not sufficiently traumatised if they have sex with someone else too soon afterwards (on some arbitrary scale). It is a rape myth which definitely needs to be strongly challenged.

Totally agree.

Trauma reenactment is a recognised response to traumatic events, and is common among rape victims.