A shame such a well-written piece hasn't reached a bigger audience. It all comes down to the phrase 'beyond reasonable doubt', in such circumstances that would never be clearcut. He's morally bankrupt but I imagine there are many footballers who have got away with not dissimilar behaviour...
Thanks for the context lads. The whole thing is unbelievably sordid, regardless of legal guilt and innocence.
Spot on. This case should never have resulted in prosecution. If we ever have morality courts, then fine, shame him all you like - but whilst we have criminal courts with a high standard of proof, there's no place for this. Would they prosecute a theft if a bloke turned up saying: "I was that drunk that when I got my wallet out to buy a kebab some tenners flew out and I think a bloke might have picked one up without my permission?" They'd do him for wasting police time.
Which is why so few rape cases are prosecuted, and most women don't think it's worth pursuing or reporting. However I see nothing wrong in the CPS bringing these cases, juries won't convict if it's not clear cut, and each case is different.
But they did convict. The girl didn't claim to have been raped but thought her drink might have been spiked and it ended with the CPS pursuing Evans for a rape.
If you drug a person against their will, and then have sex with them, in the eyes of the law it won't be consensual. In this case it wouldn't have been your man Evans spiking her; and he claims he didn't know. Eventually the courts believed him, so ultimately he wasn't convicted. Probably would have been not proven had it been in Scotland.
But how did they reach a guilty conclusion beyond reasonable doubt in a case where he pleaded not guilty and she didn't remember what happened at all?
The first jury interpreted the circumstantial evidence - that a drunk young woman went into a cheap hotel room for sex with one man, then another man came in and had sex with her too - differently from the second jury.
So my feminine take on this.....I believe if you go back to my original posts, I was always hanging on the side of caution as I never thought he was guilty as charged. However my thoughts on him as a person and as a man have not changed.....That he was and is low-life scum. He is the epitomy of egotism, nastiness and selfishness, without thought for another human being. He was always/will be guilty as charged on those accounts. One day may he be blessed with a daughter, and maybe then he will think back to what he did to someone elses daughter... and may he also teach his own daughter to act as a responsible adult too. Stupid men do not get caught in that postion with sensible women...end of rant
The culture in football is rotten to the core. After reading about the circumstances behind this case, I hope how these young footballers behaved isn't more prevalent amongst young males in general.
The guilty verdict was farcical in the first place, but the real issue here is the 'lad culture' which seems to thrive this day and age. Evans and Macdonald did this just to brag to their teammates on a Monday morning at training. Footballers don't live in the real word, and the immaturity is astonishing. I do hope the pendulum doesn't swing too far the other way and this prevents women from coming forward in the future if they have been legitimately raped.
