Ched Evans (Again)

[AshtonGreat]

I still can't see how one persons word against another's can result in a conviction because of the "beyond reasonable doubt" law. I would have thought that every jury member must have a doubt, to varying degrees, and that it's reasonable to have that doubt.

 

"Rapist" is an extremely evocative word, and crimes like Evans just can't be compared to stranger rape, which psychologists will tell you is all about power over an individual rather than the sex itself. The term rape originally meant take by force.

 

The psychological damage to victims of the two just don't compare I would imagine. If Evans is guilty then yes, he is a scumbag and a deviant and deserved to do time. But carrying the term "rapist" is harsh as they're being put in the same bracket as dangerous, evil, psychopaths. Totally different crime IMO.

You talk a lot of sense, sir.

[LondonBristolian]

I still can't see how one persons word against another's can result in a conviction because of the "beyond reasonable doubt" law. I would have thought that every jury member must have a doubt, to varying degrees, and that it's reasonable to have that doubt.

 

"Rapist" is an extremely evocative word, and crimes like Evans just can't be compared to stranger rape, which psychologists will tell you is all about power over an individual rather than the sex itself. The term rape originally meant take by force.

 

The psychological damage to victims of the two just don't compare I would imagine. If Evans is guilty then yes, he is a scumbag and a deviant and deserved to do time. But carrying the term "rapist" is harsh as they're being put in the same bracket as dangerous, evil, psychopaths. Totally different crime IMO.

 

I suspect a psychologist would tell you that all rapes are about power, stranger rapes or not.  And, let's be honest here, Ched Evans came into a hotel room where there was a girl he had never met and had sex with her.  That may not be dragging someone into the bushes but it IS stranger rape.

 

As a side point, I'd question whether the psychological damage of a stranger rape and rape by someone you know are as different as you think.  Yes - in the (thankfully relatively rare) cases where a complete stranger drags someone they've never met into bushes and threatens or forces them into sex there is doubtless a traumatic experience but the same is true of the (sadly far too common) cases where women are raped by friends, partners or family members where there's the double horror of the act itself and the fact the act was perpetrated by someone you know, perhaps until now trusted and may very well have to carry on seeing on a regular basis

 

Regarding your first paragraph, this is of course the problem with almost all rape convictions.  It's common that sex attacks take place in secluded or private places where nobody else is around and it's almost always going to be one person's word against another's.  There may be forensic evidence two people had sex but, if both claim that sex was consensual, that's always going to be a challenge and it's always going to be easy for the man to cast doubt on the conviction.  That shouldn't blind us to how common rape is, however, nor the fact that it's usually perpetrated in bedrooms and hotel rooms by people who have legally acquired access to those rooms and far less often by strangers in parks as the stereotype suggests.