Footballer Ched Evans was released from prison last week after serving half of a five-year sentence for raping a 19-year-old girl, whom was ruled by the court to be too drunk to reasonably consent, in a hotel room. Ched maintains his innocence and wants to return to his old team Sheffield United, saying that this was ‘an act of infidelity’ as opposed to rape, and that the girl definitely verbally consented.
Now he’s released a video statement with his girlfriend Hannah Massey, who has stuck by him despite the fact he cheated on her by having sex with a girl who was too intoxicated to remember what had happened the next day, and couldn’t properly consent.
He really shouldn’t have released the video statement. Clearly reading from cue cards (and if he’s not then that’s even worse), he appears almost comically insincere and totally devoid of any sort of emotion. You can see why they thought it might work, but it just comes across as desperate and a bit strange.
Here are four things he could have done instead, that would have won him a little bit more respect. And no, none of these will make up for the fact that he is unable to see the problem with having sex with a girl so drunk she didn’t know what was happening.
Donated to a rape crisis charity
The sensible thing to do. Especially considering he’s a footballer, loaded, and at the moment, seems to have no sensitivity to anything other than the fact the girl (whom the hotel receptionist said was ‘extremely drunk’) slurred the word ‘yes’ after having had sex with his mate.
Any charity would have been fine. Any and all humility, and an attempt to acknowledge what you’ve been convicted of doing would have also been fine.
Acknowledged, in any way, the thorny issue of consent
Nobody’s stupidly saying this is cut-and-dry – and if they are, then they haven’t read up on the case, which rests on the fact that a woman said yes, but was too drunk to properly mean it. Does this mean we should be more lenient towards Ched Evans? No, because a decent guy doesn’t have sex with a girl after his mate has finished with her in a hotel room when she’s ‘extremely drunk’ and wearing a ‘blank expression’.
A decent guy would realise the girl was incredibly drunk, and that she might not remember what happened the next morning. And that that might cause a problem. The onus isn’t on the victim for getting drunk, it’s on the perpetrator to not think about his wang for a second, and consider the consequences.
Oh, and, ‘He was drunk too’ doesn’t cut it either: if he’d killed a man or set fire to a house while drunk, would we dismiss it as alcohol-induced hijinks? Erm, no.
Just because it wasn’t down an alleyway, doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape, but there’s certainly a blurred line here – that it’s someone’s word against someone else’s, and that person can’t remember saying the word.
Unfortunately, Ched seems to have absolutely no idea about the consent issue, and won’t for a second entertain the notion that there might be more at play here than just, ‘She said the word yes so I went ahead and had sex with her’. It’s a dangerous and harmful stance to take.
Respected the decision
Look, he got out after half his sentence. He was sent down because – according to the judge – ‘The woman was 19 and extremely intoxicated. She was in no condition to form a capacity to consent to sexual intercourse and you must have realised that.’
To dismiss that and only claim that it was an ‘act of infidelity’ is a slight to every woman who has been taken advantage of when drunk everywhere. Why is he seemingly so surprised that he may not play again?
Apologised to the victim
Even once. Just a small one. Just a tiny apology for having ploughed ahead when she was too drunk to reasonably consent. No guy I’m friends with will touch a girl lurching all over the place for this very reason, no matter how drunk they are. What’s your excuse, Ched, that you won’t say sorry?
Maybe he feels like an apology would be an admission of guilt, which he clearly feels is a label that doesn’t apply to him. Maybe he thinks that rape is something that only happens down dark alleyways and at knifepoint. I mean, he definitely thinks that, judging from his lack of apology to the girl who has had to change her identity countless times to avoid being attacked by football fans, all because she woke up after having had her drink spiked and having non-consensual sex with two men. One of whom had a girlfriend.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.