So much for the rehabilitation of offenders.

[cromwell]

I think this law really is daft.
The crux of this case being that the young woman was too drunk to consent to sex, therefore it is raping her to have sex with her.
There is an automatic assumption here that if the victim had been sober she would have said no, which is a best guess.

If the girl was to drunk to consent, then how did the other footballer, Clayton Macdonald get found Not Guilty? Supporters of the verdict say because the girl consented to go back to the hotel room with Macdonald. But she was drunk when she consented to go back to that room (she'd already fallen over in a kebab shop), and drunk when she consented to have sex with Macdonald, drunk when she had sex with Evans. Either both are guilty or neither.

The young woman herself says she can't remember anything.

Macdonald says the young woman consented to sex.
Evans says the young woman consented to sex.
The young woman says she can't remember.


How can you possibly convict people on this level of evidence?

Other things I find odd are that despite the girl saying she had drunk less than she normally did, she can't remember anything. Experts allegedly testified that they didn't think the amount she drank would induce memory loss. There was no trace of date rape drugs in her system and neither player was found with any in their possession.

I think the way Evans behaved was awful, appalling. It's sleazy and disgusting. I would be quite happy to kick him out of Sheffield United just on how he behaved.

But finding someone guilty of rape is a very serious matter, and imo he did not rape this girl.

[pederito1]

All I have to say on this is that if a girl goes willingly to a young footballer`s hotel bedroom what does she think he might want to do? Sit on the bed and watch the tele?

[Rodo]

Quite so.

[Suff]

Whilst I'm with Cromwell and ped on this, I'd just like to adjust one point. Cromwell states that what was done by gaining entry to the room and "asking to join the festivities" as it were, was a disgusting and immoral thing to do.

Well during my life in the Army I discovered that most of the single guys believed that any girl who entered the barracks for sex, even if she was in a closed single room with one person, was fair game for sex with everyone else who was in the barracks at the time. They saw nothing wrong with it and felt it was the "tart's" fault for being there in the first place.

It's why I alluded to the jury and the location. It comes down to life experiences of the people judging the event and the "moral standards" of that jury. I'm pretty sure that in most large inner cities no conviction would have been possible. I firmly believe they thought that one person, one drunk girl, was acceptable and that anyone who wanted to crash the party was a pervert and therefore could be convicted of rape... It's exactly how the entire transcript reads and I have waaaay too much experience with people who think that way and act that way.

No consideration for the life they would be destroying would have entered their minds...

To me it trivialises brutal Rape which is a serious crime for which I'd serve out the Death penalty in many cases and castration with a blunt instrument and extreme prejudice for others.....

I do have daughters and granddaughters.

[Rodo]

I reckon that any girl/woman drunk or sober who goes willingly to a man's bedroom is giving out messages that she is up for it.

I'm sorry if that offends some people, but it seems very plain to me.

[Suff]

I'm with you on that Rodo. Clearly from the evidence of the trial, she was up for it but then claimed later she was not. Or, more to the point, "could not remember".

Bad taste or low moral standards is not rape in my opinion.

To be totally frank there were times in my younger life when a girl like that falling over me would have been very welcome indeed. Today I'd pack her off home tout suite even if she started to strip naked for me in the street. I like my freedom....