The debates about whether the convicted rapist Ched Evans should resume a professional football career so soon after his release from prison, re-heated now by reports that Oldham Athletic are to sign him, often mention his victim last, with a faint reminder that she should not be forgotten. Putting the victim first lends a different orientation to this unprecedented legal and moral maze for football, which circles around whether Evans has a right to earn his living as a footballer, having served his time for a despicable crime about which he maintains his innocence.
His victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons but has been repeatedly identified by internet hounds, was found by a jury to have been raped aged 19 by Evans, after she bumped into Evans’s friend, Clayton McDonald, also a footballer, at 4am in a kebab shop in Rhyl.
In the taxi to the Premier Inn, which Evans had booked for his and McDonald’s night out, McDonald texted him: “I’ve got a bird.” Once inside the hotel room, McDonald was having sex with the girl when Evans arrived. The court heard that the girl was asked if Evans could “join in”. He claimed that she consented, but the jury verdict rejected that. Evans did “join in”.
His brother and friend were outside the room laughing, trying to film what was happening on their phones. While Evans was having sex with the girl, McDonald left the room. Evans left later, by the fire escape.
They then walked back to Evans’ family home in Rhyl. The teenage girl woke up at 11am, on her own in the room.
She said she did not know what had happened, even how she had ended up there, and went to the police that night. The two men were prosecuted for rape, on the grounds that the victim was too drunk to have been capable of consenting to sex.
The jury which heard the evidence acquitted McDonald but convicted Evans, who served half of a five-year sentence for rape before being released in October. He might reflect that a website, set up and funded by his supporters to maintain his innocence, does not achieve a greatly improved perception of him. It offers a £10,000 reward for information leading to his conviction being overturned, apparently inviting the victim’s friends to come forward with information about her.
There is a section headlined “Key and undisputed facts”, yet it describes McDonald’s text from the taxi like this: “On the way to the Premier Inn Clayton sent a message to Ched saying words to the effect of: ‘I am with a girl.’”
The girl, about whom McDonald had in fact texted “I’ve got a bird,” faced the trauma of what happened, then the police investigation, giving evidence in court, and, according to her father, is still suffering.
The argument for Evans, including from Gordon Taylor, the Professional Footballers’ Association’s chief executive, is that Evans has a legal right to play again, having served his time. That is true. Football has no rules of its own against employing convicted rapists as players, who could be paid handsomely and claim the adulation of fans.
It is an anomaly that the game does not seem to be addressing that sex offenders are deemed not “fit and proper” people under the Football League and Premier League owners and directors test, so Evans could not be a director of any club.
While the debate rages, including another petition against him being re-employed rapidly gaining thousands of signatories, the young woman has been unable to proceed with her life. The most recent reports are that she has had to change her identity five times to avoid the internet haters.
Her father told the Daily Mirror that she did not go to her family home for Christmas and she is “living her life on the run”. He said he has complained to the attorney general about aspects of the Evans website which he argues further victimise her.
Evans has the legal right to take his arguments that the trial was unfair – the website pleads repeatedly that footballers are victimised by the media – to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which he has.
The website, though, is unrelentingly hostile to the girl who is established in law to have been his victim. It sullies her in several different, pernicious and manipulative ways.
You wonder how many people at clubs have read it, when weighing Evans’ desirability with their core priorities: goals and points. They should, because it lends a different perspective to the arguments about whether he is a fit and proper person to run out for a heritage, community club, to be a role model – which his own supporters’ website holds him up to be, complete with homely pictures of him with babies and a dog.This website is still up; his review is not concluded and his victim is living life on the run.
All this makes it seem not the right time yet for Ched Evans to be featuring in team pictures of beloved clubs which will decorate the bedrooms of children.
