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Ched Evans cleared of rape in retrial

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Original post by Fenice
The argument is that McDonald had reasonable belief of consent but Evans did not


My point is, her drunkenness cannot be used against one individual and noth another in the same situation....

Also I think this new case would suggest he did have reasonable belief.... otherwise he wouldn't of been found not guilty.
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Fenice
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Original post by DanB1991
My point is, her drunkenness cannot be used against one individual and noth another in the same situation...


But it is possible for a jury to conclude that one of them had reasonable belief and the other did not
Original post by unprinted
Messy?!?

Let's put you in his position.

You've arrived in a hotel room, uninvited, unexpected and unwanted. (You had to lie to get the door key - you've been drinking, but you're in control of your mind and your actions.) Your mate is having sex with a woman. You've never spoken to the woman before, and you do not speak to her now. You don't actually know who she is... was she the one you stepped over when she was lying drunk on the floor of that kebab shop a while ago? Either way, your mate hears your brother and a friend at the window trying to film what's happening and gets off her to close the curtains. He also doesn't ask her whether you can have sex with her, but you do anyway... without using a condom, and you don't ask about that either.

Where's your reasonable belief in her consent?


The court seems to have accepted the following account of the events...

"Clay was stood at the end of bed, and the woman was at the foot of the bed.....on her back.
"Clay looked at me and then looked at her and then said 'can my mate join in'?
"She looked at me and then said 'yes'."

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/childish-ched-evans-says-woman-having-sex-with-friend-let-him-join-in-court-1-8173434
---
Most worrying thing is that if it happened to someone without his financial resources they'd have been left in prison and never cleared their name.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by justboy
Marxism? What?

Incase you haven't noticed- we live under a capitalist system and not a communist one you moron.


***I will post this under separate cover also as there are clearly people here who are 20 years behind the actual time we live in, I am not a moron. You just don't perceive today's world yet****

You don't seem to understand cultural Marxism. Things like feminism, racial equality, religious equality, sexuality equality were promoted. Whereas Marxism promoted equality of wealth, cultural Marxism holds that all groups are equal. It's a flawed theory because nature is not equal and hence groups are not equal. What is has convinced people to do is put coloured goggles on and refuse to look at facts if they contradict the theory and label everyone who does not buy into the theory as a "hater". Hence it brings with it concepts like a "hate crime" which is really just a crime.

Cultural Marxism went one step further than group equality with an idea called affirmative action. This effectively says that some groups are more equal than others. Affirmative action creates victims for example Christians practise their beliefs for fear of being sued while Muslims can, suitably qualified people may be overlooked for a job because they don't fit diversity quotas and a man and a women have rough sex (like Ched Evans) and the man and only the man is convicted of rape.



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Original post by DanB1991
Being drunk does not automatically make someone a rapist, you could be absolutely rat faced and under the legal definition of rape, as long as the defendant has reasonable belief they consented it's not rape.

That's right: sex with someone who is too drunk to consent is rape if you don't have a reasonable belief in their consent. The key word is 'reasonable'.

for a fair few years, being drunk doesn't suggest a lack of consent. They have to be completely unable to provide or deny consent for them to be classed as too drunk.


From the summing up of the first trial:

'A woman clearly does not have the capacity to make a choice if she is completely unconscious through the effects of drink and drugs, but there are various stages of consciousness, from being wide awake to dim awareness of reality. In a state of dim and drunken awareness you may, or may not, be in a condition to make choices. So you will need to consider the evidence of the complainant's state and decide these two questions: was she in a condition in which she was capable of making any choice one way or another? If you are sure that she was not, then she did not consent. If, on the other hand, you conclude that she chose to agree to sexual intercourse, or may have done, then you must find the defendants not guilty.'

The very fact she was deemed capable of consenting to one individual means than drunkenness cannot be used in this particular case.


She wasn't. No-one with a brain thinks she was able to consent to McDonald and then magically lack capacity some seconds later when Evans started having sex with her.

But McDonald, who'd gone with her to the room and actually talked to her prior to sticking his penis in her may have had a reasonable belief in her consent and so was unanimously acquitted in the first trial. (With no witnesses to contradict his story about what happened, what other verdict could there be?)

Evans, who had arrived in the room uninvited, unexpected and unwanted in the middle of McDonald having sex with her, did not ask her prior to sticking his penis in her and McDonald says he didn't ask either. No-one - the pair outside the room trying to film it or the night porter who could hear that sex was happening - says that they heard the cries of '**** me harder' that Evans said she was making. He obviously believes he had consent, but the jury in the first trial heard his evidence contradicted and unsupported by witnesses and unanimously decided that that belief was not reasonable.

The main difference between the two trials is that the second jury did not hear all the evidence that the first one did, despite asking for it.
Original post by Joinedup
The court seems to have accepted the following account of the events...

'Clay looked at me and then looked at her and then said "can my mate join in"?'


Evans does say that, but the second jury were not allowed to know that Clayton McDonald has consistently denied - including on oath - that he said anything like that.

Let's assume that McDonald, the person the jury believed in the first trial, is telling the truth. His version of what happened with the window is easily the most likely, for example, and as a close friend of Evans he has zero reason to lie about not asking the woman. If he had said that it happened when first questioned, Evans would never have been on trial.

Given that, where's Evans' reasonable belief?

Most worrying thing is that if it happened to someone without his financial resources they'd have been left in prison and never cleared their name.


He was released from prison two years ago, before the appeal that lead to this retrial even started.
Original post by Lollypop100
a man and a women have rough sex (like Ched Evans) and the man and only the man is convicted of rape.


Where's the suggestion that they had 'rough sex' as opposed to him ****ing someone who was literally falling down drunk, didn't know what had happened to their handbag and would shortly piss themselves while unconscious without waking up?
Original post by Greg Jackson
Mumsnet feminists currently losing their minds over this lulz

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2619555-Ched-Evans-wins-appeal


It's funny how many times the word victim is used on that thread. The victim in this is Ched Evans...


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Original post by Underscore__
It's funny how many times the word victim is used on that thread. The victim in this is Ched Evans...


If he's a victim, he genuinely did bring it all on himself.

If he had actually, you know, asked the woman before sticking his penis in her, this would never have got to trial. Just a single phrase would have done. Instead, he lied about McDonald asking.
Original post by Underscore__
I bet all those people who bashed and berated him for trying to get on with his life will be silent despite owing him a huge apology.


Not only will he not receive an apology, I bet these people like Jessica Valenti will write articles insinuating that he is guilty and claiming the not guilty verdict is a stitch up.
Original post by AlexanderHam
Not only will he not receive an apology, I bet these people like Jessica Valenti will write articles insinuating that he is guilty and claiming the not guilty verdict is a stitch up.

To be fair when people criticised Evans, he had been convicted.*

They had every reason to assume his guilt when he had been found guilty. It wasn't a trial by media, he had been convicted.
I don't feel that they owe him any apology for that.*

*
Original post by AlexanderHam
Not only will he not receive an apology, I bet these people like Jessica Valenti will write articles insinuating that he is guilty and claiming the not guilty verdict is a stitch up.


The law means that the second jury were not allowed to hear the evidence of the third person in the room, even though they asked for it. We know that it contradicts Evans' defence on the critical point of whether anyone asked if he could have sex with her.

Is that a stitch up?
Original post by Bornblue
To be fair when people criticised Evans, he had been convicted.**


Susanne whatsherface from the Guardian still criticised him even after the Criminal Cases Review Commission announced they were fast-tracking the inquiry into his case. That was wholly wrong, and now we know that he was in fact innocent.

Remember he continued to pursue this vigorously even after he'd been released from prison, he was determined to establish his innocence. There are far too many people who want to use rape cases as a political weapon.
Original post by unprinted
The law means that the second jury were not allowed to hear the evidence of the third person in the room


What third person in the room? You mean McDonald?

And what "law" excludes the second jury from hearing such evidence? I'm guessing you're not exactly an expert on the law, right?

We know that it contradicts Evans' defence on the critical point of whether anyone asked if he could have sex with her.


What do you mean whether "anyone" asked if he could have sex with her? The fact is that it is logically impossible for Evans to be guilty and McDonald not. Either she was too intoxicated to consent to either, or not.

Is that a stitch up?


Conspiracy theories are so boring.
Original post by AlexanderHam
Susanne whatsherface from the Guardian still criticised him even after the Criminal Cases Review Commission announced they were fast-tracking the inquiry into his case. That was wholly wrong, and now we know that he was in fact innocent.

Remember he continued to pursue this vigorously even after he'd been released from prison, he was determined to establish his innocence. There are far too many people who want to use rape cases as a political weapon.

*But at that time he had still been convicted.

If anyone calls him a rapist now that would be wrong but it wasn't wrong when he had been found guilty by a court. Lots of people appeal convictions, few are successful. You can't blame people for calling him a rapist when he had been convicted so no one owes him an apology for doing so.

I don't dispute the decision of the court but what is very unfair is how the complainant was questioned on her sexual history with other men. The fact she consented to sex with others in the past has no bearing on whether she consented this time.*
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by AlexanderHam
What third person in the room? You mean McDonald?

And what "law" excludes the second jury from hearing such evidence? I'm guessing you're not exactly an expert on the law, right?



What do you mean whether "anyone" asked if he could have sex with her? The fact is that it is logically impossible for Evans to be guilty and McDonald not. Either she was too intoxicated to consent to either, or not.



Conspiracy theories are so boring.


It is entirely possible that she consented to McDonald but not to Evans.

Not saying that's what happened but it is certainly not impossible. *
Original post by unprinted
If he's a victim, he genuinely did bring it all on himself.

If he had actually, you know, asked the woman before sticking his penis in her, this would never have got to trial. Just a single phrase would have done. Instead, he lied about McDonald asking.


I don't think I've physically asked my sexual partner if they wanted to have sex in 99% of situations. It's why an individuals actions before and during sex are taken into account, most people don't generally ask in the suggested feminist manner because it can turn a heat of the moment, or romantic moment into something completely awkward and cringy.
Original post by AlexanderHam
What third person in the room? You mean McDonald?


Of course.

And what "law" excludes the second jury from hearing such evidence? I'm guessing you're not exactly an expert on the law, right?


See the Criminal Rules and Practice Directions. Because he wasn't being called as a witness, his statements were not evidence the jury could consider, just as they couldn't consider posts here.

If Evans is telling the truth, why didn't the defence call McDonald?

The fact is that it is logically impossible for Evans to be guilty and McDonald not. Either she was too intoxicated to consent to either, or not.


No, it's not. The reason has been repeated many, many times, but...

If she was not too intoxicated to consent, the first jury were instructed to acquit both men. By not doing so, we know that they found that she was and she must have been too intoxicated to consent to both men. However, a reasonable belief in consent is a defence, even when that belief is mistaken. Unanimously, the jury decided that McDonald had a reasonable (albeit mistaken) belief and they also decided unanimously that Evans did not.

Conspiracy theories are so boring.


Stitch up or not?
Original post by DanB1991
I don't think I've physically asked my sexual partner if they wanted to have sex in 99% of situations.


How many of those partners have been people you've never spoken a word to, people you've had no previous interaction with (apart from stepping over them, drunkenly slumped on the ground in a kebab shop, within the previous hour), and people who haven't invited, expected, or wanted you to turn up in the hotel room they're in?

Consent isn't always simple, but sometimes the lack of a reasonable belief in it is obvious.
Well considering he's a footballer he might just be a sleazebag who cheated on his partner. How many times have we seen that before. I can think of at least 4 (Rooney, John Terry, Giggs and Ashley Cole).

Also why would this case discourage reporting? If you look at UK crime data from 2011/2012 and then compare it to 2013/2014 and anything after that you'll notice that the number of reports has more than doubled since then. I'm willing to bet that uncovering the Jimmy Saville scandal had something to do with it.
(edited 7 years ago)

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