A spokeswoman for the campaign group Women Against Rape added: “This sets a dangerous precedent to allow irrelevant sexual history evidence, which the law was supposed to prevent, opening the floodgates to trashing the woman’s character in any rape trial once again.
“This trial is a throwback to the last century when women who reported rape were assumed to be lying and their sex life was on trial – just a piece of meat, to be done sex to by any man under any circumstance.”
I’ve not seen it clearly stated but the impression I’m getting is that the question before the court was along these lines:
“Is this the sort of bird who will get boozed up and then have a threesome with a couple of blokes she’s just met?”
If not then the presumption is going to be rape, if so, then not.
Seems that it’s really pretty relevant to that question as to whether she’s the sort of bird who gets boozed up and …..
The law clearly wasn’t ‘supposed to prevent’ this:
“Under Section 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 there are strict limits on details of an alleged victims’ sexual past which can be aired in court, other than in exceptional circumstances.
But Lady Justice Hallett, sitting with Mr Justice Flaux and Sir David Maddison, ruled that it was a “rare case” in which it would be appropriate to allow “forensic examination” of the woman’s sexual behaviour.”
I expect the next feminist whackjob tack will be ‘one woman judge? she must have been bullied by the two male judges!’…
Women are terrified that they might have to restrain their behaviour in the event their character is called into question at some point in their lives. Thank goodness this doesn’t apply to men, eh?
This is rather a good summary by The Secret Barrister
https://thesecretbarrister.com/2016/10/14/10-myths-busted-about-the-ched-evans-case/
Thanks for that flatcap. so what we have is the CPS forcing the matter rather than letting it drop.When the Court of Appeal ask for a retrial the CPS could have offered no evidence and that would’ve been the end of it, they decided to press the matter of this evidence and so they put this girl’s behaviour on trial and as a result they got every woman’s rights group in the country kicking up a fuss. Which is undoubtedly what they wanted as the next thing to come out of this will probably be a review of the law, with the intent that accusers version of events should never be questioned.
Having read the above link I am left puzzled.
If, as stated, the lady claimed to have forgotten what happened on the night in question, how did the prosecution start?
I’m going to presume that at the time she initially went to the police egged on by her friends, it was along the lines of “I might have been raped” and the police and CPS were very enthusiastic about it.
Teenage girl,sex with a famous footballer, can’t remember it; something akin to munchausens went on in her brain. Then she started getting abuse on social media and probably wished she’d kept get gob shut.
Don’t worry. North Wales Police still think he’s guilty.
Supt Jo Williams said: “We acknowledge the decision of the jury.”
“We are aware that once again the victim has been named on social media.
http://www.north-wales.police.uk/news-and-appeals/statement-in-relation-to-ched-evans-verdict.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
What north wales police think does not matter. Its what a jury of his peers decides that matters.
Whether it was actually rape or not is a bit of a moot point now, he was sentenced, did his time, now cleared his name. Whether he gets any more footballing jobs is another matter but cannot be officially due to the rape charge now.
Incidentally, saying a woman’s prior sex life will make the jury think she was asking for it says a lot about what people assume said sex life consists of. What if her prior sex life consisted of sleeping with two guys both of whom were long term boyfriends she met at church? It’s one hell of an assumption.
Tim Newman – “Women are terrified that they might have to restrain their behaviour in the event their character is called into question at some point in their lives.”
As Roissy says, feminism is about the maximum freedom for women’s sexual choices, and minimum freedom for men’s.
This is a case that took place in the midst of a very disordered group of people. Two of them had sex with her. Two more looked on. She was too drunk to remember – or so she says.
Yeah. Something we would all recommend for our daughters.
Flatcap’s friend says that the imbalance (anonymity for the woman and publicity for the man) was introduced to make the prosecution’s job easier. The hope was that publicity for the man’s identity would bring forward more women keen to accuse him of rape.
Meantime, Mr Evans’ sympathisers would seem to have offered £50k in hopes of bringing forward witnesses to those of the accuser’s sexual habits that might lead to acquittal for Mr Evans.
Brilliant: a contest between two evils. Is the law here as vile as Mr Evans?
P.S. Flatcar’s source says that the person I’ve called “the accuser” didn’t strictly accuse Mr Evans of rape. She said she didn’t remember. In which case, what noun might be suitable for her? “Victim” won’t do because it’s not clear that she was a victim of anyone else. Would “complainant” do?
The thing stood out from the Guardian was the continued pushing of the line that consensual sex is not possible if you’re drunk, when the law (per secret barrister) and common sense and life experience and family history and everything but feminist theoretical weirdness screams that is not the case.
Raccoon is interesting on this case.
http://annaraccoon.com/2016/10/15/on-yer-ched-evans/comment-page-1/#comment-18205726434459688
This situation is really no different from the commonplace bad character applications heard in court all the time, save that we’re not meant to be judgmentally about young, er, ladies, getting lagered up and skewered in a cheap hotel room, so we don’t call it ‘bad character’.
So, what ordinarily happens is this: Abdul accuses Hamid of biffing him on the nose and breaking said nose. Hamid’s defence is that yes he biffed Abdul, but in self-defence. The CPS and police are required to disclose to Hamid that Abdul has a string of convictions for wanton physical violence, so Hamid asks the judge for the jury to be told about these convictions, and in all likelihood the judge would agree to this.
So the jury would hear that Abdul quite properly went to the police, that he was – importantly – motivated to make such a complaint, and that Hamid admitted he’d biffed Abdul. Then the jury would be left to decide whether the Crown had proved to the required standard that Hamid biffed Abdul and not whilst defending himself.
In my experience, such prosecutions almost always fail.
Once the jury knows that a complainant has form for the behaviour of which he complains, it is very difficult for that jury to be sure of a defendant’s guilt.
If our cue is to be taken from these wimmins’ groups, then, for the sake of consistent treatment of defendants (ha!) juries should not be told that Abdul has form.
If a trial takes place of a man accused of robbing a bank, the jury must determine whether the accused robbed the bank, not whether the bank had been robbed.
Juries are supposed to decide whether an accused committed the crime in question, not to decide whether a crime had been committed in the first place: that is supposed to be the job of the police.
In these rape trials where the issue is ‘consent’, the jury has to decide whether a crime has taken place. Clearly the police cannot do so because there is no forensic evidence nor independent witnesses, so how is it imagined a jury can do so objectively what the police cannot?
Of course the CPS knows this which is why after the failed, No means No, thing, they now are pushing incapacity to make voluntary decisions due to intoxication claim. Intoxication lowers inhibitions so someone might do a thing which sober they would not, and after feel ashamed about. Lowered inhibitions does not impair ability to make voluntary decisions.
There is however a great danger: if a jury decides a crime was committed, then the accused is guilty by default without the jury actually making that determination.
X is guilty because a crime was committed and the crime was committed because X did it… circular argument.
In the normal course of events, a case would not go to Court where it could not be established a crime had been committed, but certain rape trials go ahead to pander to feminist activist groups, meet quotas (not enough rape convictions), to deflect criticism of the institutions involved and the build political capital… ‘doing more for dwntrodden wimmin’… for the political slime.
We have justice being perverted in the cause of politics… political show trials.
If a rape case goes to trial to meet targets, and is then decided by jury to be not guilty, how does it help matters?
The accused in certain criminal cases, including rape, often have months or even years of abuse, shunning, difficulty finding a job etc.
A friend was hounded out of his house and later had the caravan he was living in burnt because of an allegation, nothing more. He has never worked since, a simple google search turns up the allegation multiple times in the press.
Pretty much the whole media are utter motherfuckers about what’s happened. They ask these sorts of feminist bitches for a comment, or do a lot of “well, he didn’t exactly behave well”.
Absolutely no-one has asked why this shit case got to court in the first place.
He had a threesome with the sort of girl that likes fucking footballers and consented to a threesome. He didn’t even behave in an ungentlemanly fashion. His mate asked if he could join in, and she said yes. Frankly, blokes who take girls out to Pizza Hut on a date deserve greater admonishment.
It stinks of snobbery. If this was a nice middle class bloke, there would be outrage, but Ched Evans is a footballer, so obviously a scumbag racist really.
John “incapacity to make voluntary decisions due to intoxication”
In my youth I may have once or twice woken up next to a lady I would not willingly have taken to bed were i sober. I imagine this is true for many a chap,hence the common reference to beer goggles. It seems to me some groups are trying to make taking advantage of someone while they are drunk a crime. in which case the potential court cases could be hilarious.
“Yes m’lud, the defendent is clearly a two bagger and i am 9/10,she should be locked up for the protection of society!”
Martin,
“If a rape case goes to trial to meet targets, and is then decided by jury to be not guilty, how does it help matters?
The accused in certain criminal cases, including rape, often have months or even years of abuse, shunning, difficulty finding a job etc.”
It helps the police in that they can say that they’re doing their job. The cost to the accused doesn’t affect them.
John B, I understand the larger point you are making, but this, “If a trial takes place of a man accused of robbing a bank, the jury must determine whether the accused robbed the bank, not whether the bank had been robbed.” is wrong.
The Crown must in fact prove that the bank was robbed, then that the defendant was the man who did the robbing.
If her history was irrelevant as they claimed in their statement then it shouldn’t have made any difference to the verdict, can’t have it both ways. They aren’t interested in justice though
Another thought occurs. The young lady concerned has apparently never made a complaint of rape by C Evans.
Nevertheless, she has undergone the humiliations and anxieties of this process, twice, because someone who is not C Evans thought it would be good for her.
Even if you’re one of those people who think he got off wrongly, can it really be said that he did her more harm than the person who decided to sacrifice her in this way?
We must destroy this woman, to save this woman.
“If a rape case goes to trial to meet targets, and is then decided by jury to be not guilty, how does it help matters?”
A not guilty verdict in a case like this is as good for the SJWs as a guilty one – it gives them a lever to demand even more dilution of the requirement to prove guilt in rape cases (they’d undoubtedly like a reversal – the accused having to prove his innocence), and to work towards their ultimate goal – to remove juries from rape cases. A guilty verdict gives them the chance to get all self-righteously worked up about the evil menz, a not inconsiderable plus, but a not guilty verdict gives them masses of publicity for their demands to ‘right the wrongs done by the likes of Ched Evans’ etc etc, which is a far greater positive. They can’t lose with these sort of cases – get a famous person in court on some sort of sexual charge, either nail them, in which case great publicity, or lose the case, in which case more ammunition for changes to the law.
John B said:
“Juries are supposed to decide whether an accused committed the crime in question, not to decide whether a crime had been committed in the first place”
Not always correct by any means.
Self-defence cases are a good example. Peter punched Paul, but was it a criminal punch or non-criminal self-defence? The jury is having to decide whether a a crime took place.
Often the only evidence is Peter’s and Paul’s. In such circumstances it is often given to a jury to decide. Very similar to rape consent questions.
Whether a jury is a good group to make such decisions I don’t know (I’d incline to Churchill’s democracy argument, that it’s a bad system but less bad than any alternative). But we do often put such questions to juries in other types of case, not just rape.
Edward, similar to that other footballer chap.
How much harm was done to a 15 year old giving a 25year old a blow job?
How much harm was done by dragging a 15 year old through the entirety of the criminal justice system, and local, national and social media circus?
In that case her dad should have gone to the footballer and asked for some hush money, enough to get his daughter through uni without any debt would have been about right.
John B – “Juries are supposed to decide whether an accused committed the crime in question, not to decide whether a crime had been committed in the first place: that is supposed to be the job of the police.”
People have been tried and convicted for murder when the victim simply disappeared. People assumed that there was a body, but it was never found.
Evans’s first mistake was to talk to the police without legal representation. Don’t do it, kids.
I wouldn’t tell a policeman if it was raining without a lawyer being present and him telling me I ought to say something about the weather. My father, a lawyer, told me that. He said never speak off the record to a policeman either; next thing you know he’ll be writing it down.
He soon won’t need to write it down, his bodycam will capture the whole conversation…
Edward Lud: “Even if you’re one of those people who think he got off wrongly, can it really be said that he did her more harm than the person who decided to sacrifice her in this way?”
Her father is reported in the news today as having said:
“I feel as if there was a rape committed in that court by those lawyers who went through my daughter’s sexual history.”
But not, you’ll note, the prosecution’s lawyers…
JuliaM: That’s a substantial improvement. Bodycam footage is harder to embellish than a policeman’s notebook.
MatthewL, did you never watch ‘Alas Smith And Jones’?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg82duQ6hl8