Thursday 8th January

We are supposed to live in a civilized society.  Some hope.  We have a culture where professional footballers are idolized and given ridiculous sums of money and almost applauded for behaving badly (on and off the pitch).  Young women are often keen to have sex with them, similar maybe to the “groupies” of the sixties and have in the past resorted to selling kiss and tell stories to the press.  These young men are, probably wrongly, held up as some sort of role models – and they often fall from these pedestals.

Ched Evans was convicted of the rape of a 19 year old girl.  She had agreed to sleep with another footballer but she says she did not consent to sex with Evans.  He says she did.  She was deemed to be too drunk at the time to have consented.  Who knows the truth – and in a way it doesn’t matter. Both of their behaviour’s are unsavoury and should not be applauded.  Mr. Evans served half of a five year sentence and is out on license until the five years are up.  He has been placed on the sex offenders register.  He has shown no remorse, insisting that he was wrongly convicted and his case is being reviewed.  None of that really matters either.

He is attempting to resume his career, and there is a strong pressure group attempting to stop him ever earning money as a professional footballer again.  I agree that his behaviour was awful, and in all likelihood he took advantage of a drunk woman.  How much lasting damage that has really done is hard to judge, but it is certainly less than violent rapes or many sexual assaults.  But he has served his sentence.  Now I ask; will an element of “public opinion” stop him from ever working as a footballer again, or indeed at any career? Should all released sex offenders be stopped from ever working again (it is hard enough for many to find work with a record) ?  Is he to remain “guilty” for ever?

And what will happen should his appeal be successful, and his conviction is found to be unsafe?  Will the campaign against him continue?  We live in strange times.  Believe me I am not defending him, I just question the motives of those pursuing him on twitter and with on-line petitions.  There are wars and children dying all over the world; surely there are more important things we should all be concerned about.