Ched Evans Jailed...

[225]

CCTV is everywhere and it's the main reason McDonald was cleared of any wrong-doing.

Personally I'm sat on the fence with this case. On the one hand he's a complete twat, not just for turning up to "have his turn", but also for doing that when his mrs is sat at home (and more fool her for then getting engaged to him!)
However, the evidence that has been released to the public doesn't seem to add up enough to convict (for me). But I wasn't a jury member so can't make that decision.
No two ways about it, the girl is/was an out and out slapper, who has been out looking to snag a footballer.
I'm sure this wasn't the first (or last) time she has regretted the events of a previous evening.

As it stands, Evans is a convicted rapist, who has been released on licence and is entitled to return to the job his skillset is matched to, which happens to be on a football pitch.

I grew up near North Wales and there's quite a few nights out that barely have street lights, never mind CCTV, to be fair.

I agree that they're both people I wouldn't want to associate or be associated with, and I am a bit confused by the support his partner & her family have offered him, but there's just not enough to convince me that she's any more at fault than him, tbh.

 

[ERO]

I'm not arguing for retrospective action. So no, a lot of men wouldn't "suddenly become convicted rapists". Society changes. What was seen as acceptable before is not the same as what's seen as acceptable today.

However, I do believe that seeking sex with someone who is intoxicated is rape. The whole "if they're both drunk" is neither here nor there. If both parties are equally drunk, and both initiate sex, it's not as black and white. However, even if two parties are drunk, the onus is on the person who initiates it. People use the "if you're drunk and you give your wallet away argument" but that doesn't wash. If you have to use an analogy, then the person initiating or seeking sex is the drunk driver, and the other party is the drunk person walking down the road (this could be either a man, or a woman).

However, the issue is mostly with those who seek out drunk women for sex, or use their drunken state to take advantage of them. This is the major issue. This IS rape, and it's pretty black and white. That's why the California law needs to be spread here. The fact that there IS a legal grey area is what's facilitating a lot of rapes and allowing rapists to get away with it. If it was made clear that a drunk person cannot consent, then no one can claim "but she consented".

There are always exceptions to this. But they are mostly so obscure that they rarely happen, and if they did, no one would be crying rape over them anyway (for example, a husband and wife/couple getting drunk with the intention of having sex.

If anyone thinks that anything other than a very, very small minority of women would want to make a false accusation against someone needs to examine themselves. If women feel they are being violated, men have no right to claim they are wrong in thinking so. Same thing if a man thought he was taken advantage of. There's no double standard, despite what many would have us believe.

There's been a myriad of poor analogies from both trenches in this thread, but this has to be the shittiest yet. You're comparing two mutually consenting drunk adults where one (as it has to be) happened to initiate sex, with a drunk driver (horrible crime) hitting a drunk person walking down the road (not a crime).

In your world, would random hook-ups when drunk be outright forbidden?

 

[allatsea]

But Evans had said under oath that she asked him - so he had more than reasonable belief.

If drunken consent is rape then that would apply to any consent she would have given McDonald, unless she suddenly because blind drunk after sleeping with him but before Evans walked in.

You are entitled to your beliefs on this but a jury of twelve people who sat through the whole trial, which you didn't, arrived at a different decision to you. He has been unable to overturn the jury decision so he remains a convicted rapist. Simple really.

 

[Gbspurs]

Yep, so technically, rape happens a lot more than we think.

I was chatting to my missus about this the other night.

When we started dating she used to come over to be wined and dined. After a few of these slap up meals (!) we both had far to much to drink and decided the bedroom was the best place to continue the evening.

What followed was half an hour of fumbling around, drunken prodding, and eventually we stopped as clearly neither of us were up to the task and went to sleep.

6 years later we tell this as a funny story, but if she woke up the next morning and decided she was raped I suspect the story would take an all together different tone.

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

2 middle aged women and a young lady, of 18 (I think), just started discussing Chad Evans and the case in my office without any input from me, I was quite shocked at their views to be honest...

 

[SpursOldBoy]

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.

You're using this line to support your claim that if you can't remember something then by default you can't have consented, yet within the sentence it clearly says may or may not be in a condition to make choices, so obviously it isn't as black and white as you seem to believe.

And yet the jury believed this to be the case, and he was found guilty...

 

[worcestersauce]

So is the only reason the other guy got off because there was CCTV? if so what if there wasn't?

 

[Coyboy]

I was chatting to my missus about this the other night.

When we started dating she used to come over to be wined and dined. After a few of these slap up meals (!) we both had far to much to drink and decided the bedroom was the best place to continue the evening.

What followed was half an hour of fumbling around, drunken prodding, and eventually we stopped as clearly neither of us were up to the task and went to sleep.

6 years later we tell this as a funny story, but if she woke up the next morning and decided she was raped I suspect the story would take an all together different tone.

I suspect it wouldn't, other than you would no longer be together. She may complain the police, but I am not sure it would go any further than an acquittal at court.

People are making the wrong assumption that drunk sex gives the woman a free token to go to the police, claim rape and send the guy down for years thereby ruining his life. That's simplistic and misreads the case. Each case will be decided on its own merits. This doesn't mean we all have to turn into teetotallers, just that we have to have a reasonable belief in consent.

In your scenario, you would have. In Evans', he didn't. Two different cases.

 

[Shanks]

2 middle aged women and a young lady, of 18 (I think), just started discussing Chad Evans and the case in my office without any input from me, I was quite shocked at their views to be honest...

Which were?

 

[225]

Agreed, I don't think it abnormal. I just think it disgusting and supports the belief that he could not reasonably have had consent.

As you said above, if I had sent or received that text I would take it that that bloke had got lucky and wouldn't see him again that night.

One of my mates used to be a right hound and he would pull all sorts of strays on nights out. One night in the pub his disappeared and we had it on good authority that he'd gone round to the local slapper's house after a few pints. We (group of 4 of us) were knocking on the windows and trying to see through the curtains to catch him out, basically because we knew he'd deny it and she was a right munter, so he'd never live it down. Can't remember the details, but everyone went in (I think she'd opened the door to check who was outside) and he was half conscious on the sofa with his maggot out. We put Immac on one of his eyebrows for a laugh while he was passed out.

Now, no one else would have touched her with a barge pole except for a lad who worked in the pub (and wasn't there), but if she'd have propositioned one of the group and they'd accepted, I wouldn't have seen that as even the remotest possibility of rape going down at all. It would all be the part of a funny bit of cringey consensual behaviour.

I think that it might just be that I can relate to how he said it went down that just makes me empathise.

 

[Coyboy]

One of my mates used to be a right hound and he would pull all sorts of strays on nights out. One night in the pub his disappeared and we had it on good authority that he'd gone round to the local slapper's house after a few pints. We (group of 4 of us) were knocking on the windows and trying to see through the curtains to catch him out, basically because we knew he'd deny it and she was a right munter, so he'd never live it down. Can't remember the details, but everyone went in (I think she'd opened the door to check who was outside) and he was half conscious on the sofa with his maggot out. We put Immac on one of his eyebrows for a laugh while he was passed out.

Now, no one else would have touched her with a barge pole except for a lad who worked in the pub (and wasn't there), but if she'd have propositioned one of the group and they'd accepted, I wouldn't have seen that as even the remotest possibility of rape going down at all. It would all be the part of a funny bit of cringey consensual behaviour.

I think that it might just be that I can relate to how he said it went down that just makes me empathise.

Thanks for that.

It would all come down if that person had consent or reasonable belief in consent, but it's hypothetical and every case is different.

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

Which were?

They feel sorry for Evans, thinks the girl wanted one thing, bemoaning the going out to get shagged culture and that of wags, thinks he should just be allowed to get on with playing football because he's been to jail and served his time even though they arent sure he should have been sentenced in the first place..

Just not what I was expecting whatsoever. Expected the general view of females to be 'cut off his cock and make him work down the mines' or something similar...

Then started talking about what means for the average person on a night out and that the law needs to be made clearer otherwise we are going to criminalise men with no negative intentions at all.

Edit: Oh and when questioned one of them said something about of course you wouldnt apologise if you feel you have been sentenced wrongly and want to appeal.

 

[worcestersauce]

They feel sorry for Evans, thinks the girl wanted one thing, bemoaning the going out to get shagged culture and that of wags, thinks he should just be allowed to get on with playing football because he's been to jail and served his time even though they arent sure he should have been sentenced in the first place..

Just not what I was expecting whatsoever.

Then started talking about what means for the average person on a night out and that the law needs to be made clearer otherwise we are going to criminalise men with no negative intentions at all.

Edit: Oh and when question one of them said something about of course you wouldnt apologise if you feel you have been sentenced wrongly and want to appeal.

Women are able to put themselves in that situation and reach a conclusion based on their own behaviour and that of the girl whereas men are only able to do that in the position of Evans.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Am I right in saying that the reason why the deal is off is that someone threatened to rape a board member's daughter if they signed Ched Evans, the rapist?

 

[SpursOldBoy]

Again, I didn't even relate my comment to the Evans case, I said that just because you can't remember something doesn't automatically mean you didn't or couldn't consent to it, which you said was true by default.

I may have misread your original statement then. I thought you had compared getting pissed on a night out and then taking money out of a cash machine and not remembering it the next day to someone who is saying they do not remember getting raped, and then comparing the two?

In the CPS guidelines under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 it clearly states that

Sexual Offences Act 1956
The Sexual offences Act 1956 contains no statutory definition of 'consent'. Juries must be told that the word should be given its ordinary meaning, and that there is a difference between 'consent' and 'submission'.

Lack of consent may be demonstrated by:

• The complainant's assertion of force or threats;
• Evidence that by reason of drink, drugs, sleep, age or mental disability the complainant was unaware of what was occurring and/ or incapable of giving valid consent; or
• Evidence that the complainant was deceived as to the identity of the person with whom (s)he had intercourse.

I think where we disagree is whether or not the woman was as drunk or incapable as she claimed. The jury clearly thought she was and on reading the case notes so do I.

 

[225]

Thanks for that.

It would all come down if that person had consent or reasonable belief in consent, but it's hypothetical and every case is different.

Of course, and I understand that, but I'm not sure whether an otherwise 'normal' aspect of my life is actually me witnessing a lot of apparent rape, or whether this particular case has stretched the definition by it's circumstances.

 

[225]

I think where we disagree is whether or not the woman was as drunk or incapable as she claimed. The jury clearly thought she was and on reading the case notes so do I.

Would you agree that she was based on the CCTV footage of her entering the hotel, though?

 

[mike_l]

And yet the jury believed this to be the case, and he was found guilty...

FFS, this was a response to the notion that by default you're not capable of giving consent to something when drunk, I didn't relate it back to the Evans case so why are you arguing as if I did?

 

[Mustard]

Lol. The penny is finally dropping for the twat.

Apology or not his only ever chance to ever play again is the case review.

Good.

 

[mike_l]

I may have misread your original statement then. I thought you had compared getting pissed on a night out and then taking money out of a cash machine and not remembering it the next day to someone who is saying they do not remember getting raped, and then comparing the two?

In the CPS guidelines under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 it clearly states that

Sexual Offences Act 1956
The Sexual offences Act 1956 contains no statutory definition of 'consent'. Juries must be told that the word should be given its ordinary meaning, and that there is a difference between 'consent' and 'submission'.

Lack of consent may be demonstrated by:

• The complainant's assertion of force or threats;
• Evidence that by reason of drink, drugs, sleep, age or mental disability the complainant was unaware of what was occurring and/ or incapable of giving valid consent; or
• Evidence that the complainant was deceived as to the identity of the person with whom (s)he had intercourse.

I think where we disagree is whether or not the woman was as drunk or incapable as she claimed. The jury clearly thought she was and on reading the case notes so do I.

I think I've been quite clear on this section of the discussion, that you ARE capable of making a consenting decision whilst drunk IMO, even if you can't remember it in the morning. If you really believe that you're not capable of doing so then you shouldn't go out and drink, and if the law really believes that alcohol has such an impact, then it should be outlawed too.