Trina wrote:First time I have read all this.
Why did ched go to the hotel room knowing McDonald was there with a female?
And if it was ok for McDonald to sleep with her, why not ched? Seen as she has no memory of it. How come McDonald got nothing and ched was sent down?
McDonald texted him. As I understand it, the ruling was that she consented to having sex with McDonald (while drunk, which wasn't a problem) but that Evans then arrived and took advantage of her when she had slipped into an alcoholic stupor. Which would be rape, but I wonder how they can be sure that that's what happened (sure enough to convict him, I mean). And if it was rape then why wasn't McDonald then an accomplice to rape, since he left the two of them together? I have to presume there's evidence in the full documentation of the trial.
I can understand why people are worried that there is such an overheated atmosphere that a man could be convicted without sufficient evidence (when, for example, a teenage boy hangs himself after being told by a male teacher that a drunk girl simply can't consent to sex:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-30783953. The girl had made no accusation; she'd just wanted a morning after pill. And now she has to remember this for the rest of her life) but this case has been studied at length by several highly trained legal minds. It's different from the shouting you get on forums and in the media. Which isn't to say that the courts always get things right. but none of us have the training and have gone through all the evidence.
I must add, though, that Football 365 has done a pretty poor job in allowing so little commenting on its articles about the case, and that its gleeful reporting of penis-severing stories in contrast to the seriousness with which it rightly takes this case is just the sort of thing that leads to the resentment in which doubts about fairness can grow.
‘Sometimes I watch Match of the Day to see how we’ve been perceived. It’s better to watch it with the sound turned down.’