I was being sarcastic, in an exasperated sort of way. It's the idea that you can be convicted of a crime, serve your sentence and then, once you're released (under licence or whatever) you cannot earn a living unless it is a job that has, presumably, been approved by the Chattering Classes. Did the rapist get a life prison sentence? Yes? No? If not, he is out. He has rejoined Society. Should he be on Unemployment Benefit until he dies? Or is it preferable that he earns a living? And although we are not allowed to say it, or even think it, this particular rapist did not pick a stranger at random and beat the poor woman half to death and rape her. He took advantage of a young woman in a despicable fashion, according to the Jury. It's still rape in the eyes of the Law but as Glidd says, there's rape and there's rape. Forgive me, and feel free to educate me but although no form of unwanted sexual activity is acceptable, there is a difference between one end of the spectrum and the other. Yet the vitriol directed at the footballer in question is the same as I've seen reserved for the most vicious of acts. I'll have to stop there before the Thought Police have me arrested and executed.
Sentencing Guidelines for every type of offence provide for various aggravating factors and mitigating factors to be taken into account. There is obviously a spectrum for each offence, and the circumstances of the offending act itself and the surrounding circumstances have to be and are taken into account in each case. This is a rather technical area, but it is clear that Evans's offence (even taken at its worst) is not by any means the most aggravated case of rape. The sentencing judge is legally obliged to take the relevant Sentencing Guidelines into account, and to explain in the sentencing remarks how he has done so.
And do you personally feel that the Judge has performed this adequately in accordance with his responsibilities?
Glid, As I have stated previously without knowing the full details of the case I am not in any position to comment with any authority. However he was found guilty by a jury. I am also stating how he will be managed. The law around rape is clear as is the issue of consent. A victim could sleep with 100 people and then withdraw consent for the 101st that then becomes rape. You are attempting to differentiate between rapes by saying that a rape that is committed by a stranger is worse? However the law does not make that distinction, if you do not consent or withdraw it, it is rape. Denying a man a chance to practice his profession? He is a convicted rapist, irrespective of whether you agree with the conviction he is. Until such time that the conviction is appealed and overturned if that even happens he is convicted. So why should he not suffer the consequences of his offending as do other convicted offenders? A different law with different outcomes just because he was in the public eye? I could not professionally assess his risk without completing a risk assessment using different tools, so could not know his potential risk of further offending. The lack of remorse that offenders have is a persistent trait, yes occasionally you may have someone who truly believes they are innocent and wrongly convicted, and the vast majority of offenders will minimise their own behaviours, alter the facts to suit their own cognitive distortions to attempt to enable them to gain sympathy and even doubt over their conviction.
No one has said that he can't work, no one has stated he should remain unemployed. His conviction and behaviour however warrant that he will always be judged by society whether you agree or not. Do you believe that he should just be able to pick up were he left off prior to raping a woman? The fact is that no business wants to be associated with him, therefore as football is primarily a business, his options will be limited.
I have no problem with a business that wants nothing to do with him. If no football club wants to employ him as a footballer, that's the choice of each and every football club chairman. I support their rights in this respect. What if a football club wants to employ him as a player? Does it have the right to do so? Based upon the last twenty-hours of media circus, I'd say no. Oldham Athletic would probably agree, the club has effectively been prevented from doing so. Was the club prevented by means of a Court injunction? The passing of a law prohibiting it? No, the club was prevented from doing so by a combination of publicity in the form of vitriolic newspaper editorials and death threats / threats of violence against family members of club employees. Forgive me but the whole sorry tale makes me sick. The guy makes me sick for (probably) taking advantage of a drunk woman, the inconsistency of treatment of the two men directly involved in the case makes me sick and the messed up idea of personal responsibility for your own safety being wholly deferred to someone who is conceivably just as drunk as you are makes me sick. The whole "consent" issue is so slippery that it is impossible not to entertain doubts about how courts interpret it. As for picking up where he left off, I cannot imagine that this will be possible for Ched Evans. He is a convicted rapist, he is on the sexual offender register and he is going to be dealing with that for the rest of his life, I have no doubt. If he knowingly took advantage of a woman who in no way made him think it was OK to do so, I'm happy for him to have to cope with the aftermath. What happens if the conviction is over-turned? It's naive to believe that any conviction is "safe", particularly in cases such as this. If the conviction is over-turned, Evans' protestations of innocence look a bit different, don't they? Or do they? Don't get me wrong. If a man breaks into a house and rapes the female occupant, I am quite content with the thought of the guy never leaving prison alive. In the case where a guy is at a party, he thinks he has "consent", but he doesn't actually have consent or consent gets "retrospectively withdrawn", the next day, week or month, then the situation is far more complicated.
I was going to post a link here to Ched Evans' website. The reasons I have not is because it has effectively closed down today. I've no doubt this is because its content it would appear has been brought to the attention of the Attorney General's office and the fact that only earlier today yet another inflammatory and ill advised set of comments were added to it by Ched Evans to which there was a social media storm (again). Given his recent footballing negotiations I've also no doubt he has finally realised its content is extremely deleterious to any prospective sporting and economic opportunity. Until today, the website has been, for some considerable length of time, full of insinuation, misdirection and conjecture. It was disingenuous at best and vile at worst. It had been toned down in recent weeks but until today remained extremely twisted and toxic. I'd looked at it several times over as I personally found the crassness of it to be quite amusing. The most striking contents were the misquoting (thereby dumbing down) of the co-defendant's "got a bird" texts to which Ched Evans responded by changing course and heading to the hotel. Sadly, I cannot remember how the website claimed this text actually read. Ched Evans, despite having to lie to get into the hotel room as it happens, interpreted that "got a bird" text as an invite to the hotel room. The website also passed off the victim's inadmissible "when I win big" tweets as evidence of her talking with her friends about compensation. They do no such thing. The website at some point contained the hotel's CCTV imagery from which I would say the victim could be identified. The website also offered a £10,000 reward for any information leading to the successful appeal of his conviction. It pilloried the victim and at one point had the audacity, in the face of Evans' sexploits, to question the victim's promiscuity. The website was so ill advised it beggared belief. I've seen its conjecture circulated time and again on social media as if gospel. It would be funny if it were not so tragic. It's an interesting thought that he, his family and his advisers remain so confident of his innocence and the strength of the evidence yet they find it necessary to resort to such baseless content. Who are they trying to kid I ask myself? His statements today in which he expressed sadness for the distress the events caused were published on his website alongside the trash talk. Whatever the evidence, I'd really like to think and hope that it is overwhelming for each verdict was unanimous and the jury were done and dusted in minutes if I remember correctly. It is important to note the judge gave direction in stressing and reminding the jury that even if they were to merely find that the victim MAY have consented to sex with either defendant then the jury simply had to find that defendant(s) not guilty. Much has been made of the judges sentencing remarks of the victim being "too drunk to have sex". Those comments could not have had a bearing on the verdict and it's important to remember that the first time Ched Evans saw the victim was when he lied his way into the room and the victim was lying on the bed "extremely ill" (or words to this effect as used by the co-defendant). Evans then became extremely confused as to who asked him to have sex. He says the co-defendant asked him. To my mind, there's a request that's missing there. The co-defendant met her earlier in much different circumstances. Love blossomed from there. The circumstances of how each of the men came to have sex with the victim (and how they left her) were quite different. The defendants were each being prosecuted for rape separately. The jury were therefore to consider the case for each defendant separately . The Court of Appeal, in refusing Evans' application for leave to appeal, found no basis on which to challenge the jury's verdicts and found no inconsistencies in the verdict. His refusal to forthrightly apologise is of course his right. If he refuses on the basis that he fears such apology will prejudice the review of his conviction then his loss of footballing opportunity as a result whilst on licence at this moment in time is a small but temporary price to pay in my opinion for being embroiled in all of this whilst he awaits the privilege of that review. If his refusal to apologise remains because he maintains he did nowt wrong then that is his right also and he must bear the consequences of that too. I've read that his review will be fast tracked. I'm sure there are more worthy cases but given the rancidness of all of this in the media and so on I hope the review is resolved ASAP. In the meantime Evans' website provides (or rather did provide when I last looked at it) a useful window into his rather twisted world. It would appear Evans is in denial of both committing the crime and the conviction. He gave a statement of regret today yet continued to display his despicable website and it would seem did not note the hypocrisy in doing so.
Now, who then wouldn't want these songs sung at their football ground, whether home or away? When he plays again these will be sung (as they are now). These have been sung by Sheffield fans in recent weeks. (I claim no interest over these lyrics nor the spelling. ) He's s**t he missed.. he fucks em when there pissed.. super ched superd. There's only one Ched Evans one Ched Evans he booked a hotel ended up in a cell walking in a Evans Wonderland. What's it like to be barnsley what's it like to be small you sign rapists we sign sammy winnall sammy winnall sammy winnall. And this, my personal favourite, rightly caused so much offence to Charlie Webster and Jessica Ennis-Hill, He fucks who he wants he fucke who he waaannts oh cheddy evans he fucks who he wants.
I admit I just don't know anything about this, and so cannot offer a view. He was either marginally convicted, did a bit of time and should be able to play footie for someone, or he's a fully paid-up turd in denial and shouldn't be playing for anyone. So it depends who he is, really. It's not open and shut.
Good post. Clearly Ched Evans comes across as un unpleasant individual who has responded very badly in trying to defend himself by whatever means are available to him. But in this respect is he any different to a great many uneducated individuals with poor life skills ?
I don't know. The point I was making that it is not correct to say blandly that "all rapes are the same". They are not the same, and the Sentencing Guidelines recognise this. Each case has aggravating factors and mitigating factors which the judge is legally obliged to consider, and adjust the severity of the sentence accordingly. I have no idea whether the judge in this case carried out his function accurately; but the sentence is neither at the most severe end of the scale nor at the least severe, and the CACD has not altered it, so it may well have been accurate.
Good point. Evans does not pretend to be educated and he is not a writer, or a lawyer, or a PR expert. He is not articulate and makes ill-considered statements. But none of that has anything to do running about a field kicking a ball, which is his principal (maybe only) skill. It's rather like criticising a dog for failing to be a cat.
[QUOTE="Pete1950, post: 495909, member: 23049"It's rather like criticising a dog for failing to be a cat.[/QUOTE] HhhhMmmmmm. If he were just not too worldly then yes, I catch your drift. But his site is more than that. Way more than that. I hope it comes back online in unadulterated form. The difficulty with this and his ability to kick a ball is, as I see it, partly my post #70 and the reaction in #71 (and a whole lot more). Whether it can be appreciated here or not I'm not sure but that kind of singing & football are synonymous. It will create a problem. Should Evans pay the price for that? Possibly not, but that's the sport he's in. It has to be said, football ,as a sport, and the clubs themselves are pretty tolerant of most things. But he's overstepped the mark here.
Depends what you mean by tolerant, I suppose. I know little about football admittedly, but the impression I gain is that the whole sport is rampantly racist, sexist, homophobic, abusive, and violently intolerant of anybody wearing a different coloured scarf. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
You forgot dishonest. From FIFA to the players deliberately flouting the rules if they think they can get away with it. The Football Cheats - The Glidd of Glood Blog
