Cycling UK Forum

irc wrote:

Psamathe wrote:[I think one of the difficulties with discussing the evidence (and thus the verdict) is that we are very dependent on (often) the likes of the Daily Mail (and others) for the accurate details of what transpired. So "Person X did Y then Z happened" might actually have been "Person X did Y, consumed a bottle of whiskey then did Y"; (not suggesting that is what happened) but you probably had to have been in court for the full trial to gain an accurate appreciation as to what different parties claimed to have happened and how credible, contradictory and consistent those accounts were. So often reporters seem to present edited highlights with the edited out bits selected to bias the conclusion their readership will make.

Ian

True. Though in this case there is publicly available CCTV showing the victim walking easily unaided to and from a taxi to retrieve a pizza. So there is some evidence to allow an opinion as to her level of drunkenness.

I've yet to read any decent suggestion how drunkenness could mean she could consent to one but not the other.

The victim also posted some rather dubious stuff on her twitter account saying she would win big and buy a new car etc....

For me it is a very clear question of intent.

Assuming guilt as he was convicted, there's a clear intent in carrying out the act of rape and people who commit such acts are clearly evil and/or mentally ill.

Killing someone through what is essentially gross negligence, whilst utterly irresponsible and deplorable does not come close in terms of seriousness of offence.

I do agree he should be free to pursue a career as our society has rightly or wrongly deemed that his punishment has been served, what is disturbing is that the football club would consider employing him, and only changed it's mind due to understandable public outrage.

It was the right outcome for the wrong reasons in my opinion.

Mattyfez wrote:
Killing someone through what is essentially gross negligence, whilst utterly irresponsible and deplorable does not come close in terms of seriousness of offence.

Well, our criminal law system thought the offences of Luke McCormick and Lee Hughes were more serious than that of Ched Evans. They got longer prison sentences than Evans did.

However, I think your opinion on the relative seriousness of these crimes is quite common.

Serious motoring criminals, even those who kill, are barely regarded as real criminals by many people.

Many years ago I worked in a school where the headmaster wanted to sack a teacher who had been convicted of being drunk and disorderly and fined a small amount. The union rep, me, asked him why he hadn't wanted to sack the head of PE who had recently been convicted of drunk driving and fined a lot more.

How many deaths and injuries could be prevented if criminal motorists were regarded as poorly as other criminals?

Mattyfez wrote:For me it is a very clear question of intent.

Assuming guilt as he was convicted, there's a clear intent in carrying out the act of rape and people who commit such acts are clearly evil and/or mentally ill.

Killing someone through what is essentially gross negligence, whilst utterly irresponsible and deplorable does not come close in terms of seriousness of offence.

I'm struggling with this. I think you are talking about seriousness of intending to rape versus the accident of negligence; yet it comes across as sounding as if being killed through gross negligence does not come close on terms of seriousness as being intentionally raped. I don't believe you meant the latter because I can't understand how anyone would be able to split the seriousness of the two experiences.

Would you mind clarifying, just for my own reassurance, that you are comparing intent v negligence in isolation, notwithstanding the end results of death and/or rape?



Aside from this point is the still-unexplained conundrum of how the victim claimed she had not consented to sex with either defendant, yet Evans was convicted while McDonald was acquitted.

Yes, intent vs negligence, both are very serious, and if the driver had intended to kill a pedestrian, in my opinion that would be more serious than rape.

But there was (presumably) no intent to kill, where as there is intent to rape by definition.

As I said, for the purpose of this discussion we can only assume that rape did take place due to the conviction.

I can't comment on the validity or severity of either conviction or length of sentence as I was not on the jury, I was speaking more in general terms.

Mattyfez wrote:Yes, intent vs negligence, both are very serious, and if the driver had intended to kill a pedestrian, in my opinion that would be more serious than rape.

But there was (presumably) no intent to kill, where as there is intent to rape by definition.

As I said, for the purpose of this discussion we can only assume that rape did take place due to the conviction.

I can't comment on the validity or severity of either conviction or length of sentence as I was not on the jury, I was speaking more in general terms.

Cool! Just checking.

I totally disagree, you are honestly saying that rape was the intention on the mind/s of the two men involved?? Is that because 12 people decided the women was raped (on the back of incomplete evidence) or is that your own conclusion??
Intending to rape is pre-meditated, this case is so far removed from that within the scope of what happened.
Similarly to those that kill using their motorvehicles, they never seemingly go out to kill but by their actions/inactions they do..In fact i'd say Mr Evans by comparison to many cyclist death cases where the motorist has got off scott free he has being done up like a kipper..

Mattyfez wrote:For me it is a very clear question of intent.

Assuming guilt as he was convicted, there's a clear intent in carrying out the act of rape and people who commit such acts are clearly evil and/or mentally ill.

Killing someone through what is essentially gross negligence, whilst utterly irresponsible and deplorable does not come close in terms of seriousness of offence.

I do agree he should be free to pursue a career as our society has rightly or wrongly deemed that his punishment has been served, what is disturbing is that the football club would consider employing him, and only changed it's mind due to understandable public outrage.

It was the right outcome for the wrong reasons in my opinion.

Tonyf33 wrote:I totally disagree, you are honestly saying that rape was the intention on the mind/s of the two men involved?? Is that because 12 people decided the women was raped (on the back of incomplete evidence) or is that your own conclusion??

It is the conclusion of twelve randomly selected people and a judge, as far as I am aware.
I can't say what happened as I've seen no evidence and was not present at the time

Mattyfez wrote:

Tonyf33 wrote:I totally disagree, you are honestly saying that rape was the intention on the mind/s of the two men involved?? Is that because 12 people decided the women was raped (on the back of incomplete evidence) or is that your own conclusion??

It is the conclusion of twelve randomly selected people and a judge, as far as I am aware.
I can't say what happened as I've seen no evidence and was not present at the time

We can remedy one of those...
https://www.crimeline.info/case/r-v-che ... dwyn-evans

Bonefishblues wrote:

Mattyfez wrote:

Tonyf33 wrote:I totally disagree, you are honestly saying that rape was the intention on the mind/s of the two men involved?? Is that because 12 people decided the women was raped (on the back of incomplete evidence) or is that your own conclusion??

It is the conclusion of twelve randomly selected people and a judge, as far as I am aware.
I can't say what happened as I've seen no evidence and was not present at the time

We can remedy one of those...
https://www.crimeline.info/case/r-v-che ... dwyn-evans

Reading that I feel a conviction was fair. She was drunk enough to wet the bed. If he had decent intentions he'd have let her sleep it off and they could have 'bumped uglies' in the mornin.

Time to go through this thread and do some editing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news?ocid=global-news-pinned-ie9

thirdcrank wrote:Time to go through this thread and do some editing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news?ocid=global-news-pinned-ie9

Lol lol, with you there thirdcrank ......

I would like to make a whole hearted apology to Ched Evans for any libel that I may have said about him. Even though he was from the moment of his conviction until the quashing of it, an evil rapist b*****d not worth spitting on who should be hung up by the soft bits and lashed. As of today that situation no longer exists and now from the period of conviction until quashing he was an angelic saint wrongly accused and wrongly convicted, despite his innocence. All those who took advantage of that period of injustice should now go back, edit their words and beg the poor innocent victim's forgiveness.

The Courts are never wrong.

One subtle change is that he's back to being Mr Evans in the media reports, a bit of protocol that seems to be lost on the CPS

Ed Beltrami, Chief Crown Prosecutor, said: "The prosecution argued that the complainant did not have the capacity to consent, but the jury found they could not be sure, beyond reasonable doubt, that the complainant did not consent, or that Evans thought she was not consenting."

(From my earlier link.)

meic wrote:The Courts are never wrong.

Especially if it's you or yours that's in court and they find for your side ...