As someone who's got a degree in law, I beg to differ, s.74 of the sexual offences act 2003 states that consent is defined as "a person consents if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice." As result most judges will assume that if a person is under the influence of alcohol (and I mean if they're so pissed they can't stand) then they cant physically consent. If you actually read what I said earlier, I said that if someone is drunk and you have sex with them then it is rape technically. Most people dont care about it as most people in a consensual relationship have sex whilst pissed. If you pick up a girl on a night out and she's pissed you could be in trouble the next day. That's all I'm saying
Your exception proves (ie tests) the rule. Evans has had legal bods offer defences to the charges that were rejected. At this moment in time he is a convicted rapist. For your argument to have legs, every convicted person's innocent and Evans would have no need to appeal. The evidence of his Police record shows he is a convicted rapist. The fact he's appealing supports that evidence.
Good. The whole point of this thread was to highlight his appeal. There's a very good chance of him being acquitted.
English law is heavily weighted in favour of women. Sex is just about the only area where one can be considered "too drunk to consent", and it is used almost solely by women. Imagine a woman has a drink and, whilst drunk, consents to sex with a man. When she wakes up, she can't remember consenting and so the police, judge and jury believe she must have been 'too drunk to consent'. By what standards is this judged? Is it how many drinks they've had? Whether they can remember the sexual act? How ashamed they feel about getting so drunk they've put themselves in a position of vulnerability in the first place? Who even knows anymore. Also, imagine yourself in court on a charge of assaulting somebody. Imagine using the defence you were 'too drunk to know what you were doing'. To my knowledge, this is a fairly common defence but which has never been successfully used, with the exception of cases where there were other mitigating circumstances. How can 'drunkenness' be offered as an explanation of behaviour to both defendants and victims, yet only accepted in one in spite of the fact it contradicts the law's position in other cases? It's a total **** up that needs addressing.
I presume the review could decide that Clayton McDonald's acquittal was unsafe and have him retried. The film was taken at 3am about an hour before she met Clayton McDonald. The full film, shows her falling over. She also left her bag in the kebab shop. The footage that his mates took on the mobile phone would have given a clearer indication of how drunk she was at the time and whether she was capable of giving consent. The jury saw far more evidence than people on this board and convicted him. The Court of Appeal upheld his conviction.
You're right, he is a convicted rapist, and I'm not denying that. I don't know for certain if he's guilty or not, and I never said I did. All I did was highlight the issues with the prosecution's argument/s.
You've answered your own question. If you are too drunk to know what you are doing you cannot give consent. The only question then is whether you were too drunk. In this case Ched Evans' mates filmed her. The film on the mobile phone would show what state she was in and whether she was capable of giving consent.
What are you basing that assumption on?. He's not been given leave to appeal. His legal team have asked for a review to be fast tracked is all.
They won their appeals. Evans didn't. Your argument was that there's no evidence to show he's a rapist, but have provided some yourself.
the only problem is that, as with many aspects of the law, it's so vague and there's no parameters as many people's alcohol tolerances differ. I read somewhere that some Lord proposed a change in the wording for being under the influence to "someone who is clearly inebriated" or something to that entail as you're right many people are exploiting this side of the law
I also said earlier that I wasn't party to all of the facts, that some of the evidence made available in the media does suggest his innocence, that it is highly improbable he actually is innocent, and that given he was found guilty then why was the other bloke let off? And I didn't really answer my own question with the point about drunken consent, because my point was that nobody has ever successfully argued that 'drunken consent to the committing of an assault isn't actual consent, ergo I wasn't of sane and reasonable mind when I twatted that random bloke in the pub'. Edit: Obviously when I use the word 'consent' in the second paragraph, I'm using it as a synonym for 'mens rea / guilty mind'. They're essentially the same thing, and my point is that the fact they are used differently in law is where many of the problems arise.
