Least surprising news of the year

[Burney]

Of course. But where would your money be?

I honestly wouldn't like to say without having been in court for both trials - which is sort of the point.

[Sir C]

Are we now allowed to call his accuser a lying slag without getting told off by feminists?

Would it not make more sense if we all stopped judging others, generally on the basis of very little direct knowledge, stopped hurling insults and abuse at each other, accepted that lives, actions and events may be complex and compromised, and occasionally checked our own eye beams/motes/whatevers?

[World's End Stella]

Well until recently he was a convicted rapist... so not wanting your FC to sign him seems a normal thing to me.... would your company be happt to employ a convicted rapist if he was out on appeal?

My issue isn't with the football clubs, it's with the people who felt it sensible to protest publicly against him while he was in the process of appealing his conviction. And, personally, I would only consider someone to be truly convicted of anything once the judicial process was fully complete.

And, as we know, in this case it was not. It's not unreasonable to expect the muppets to have considered this.

[Sir C]

I should probably add here that even if Evans' version of events is entirely true, I still consider that type of behaviour reprehensible.

What type of behaviour are you objecting to? If his evidence is true, he engaged in casual sex with a girl in the company of his friend. Are you claiming some moral sexual high ground here?

[Burney]

I think his defence was very clear cut, he always said that she consented. Given that he always denied his guilt, that he had a reasonable defence, that the consent aspect of any rape conviction is a difficult one to prove and that an appeal process was underway; if I was going to 'comment' I would have held back a little on the sanctimony.

Many did. Many others did not. The latter now look a right set of muppets imo. I'm thinking primarily of those people who openly petitioned for him to not be signed by a professional football club even though his appeal was underway.

So let's say it's another offence - kiddie-fiddling or child porn, maybe. If your club were threatening to sign someone convicted of it, would you be perfectly happy for them to do so on the basis that he was appealing his conviction and had been punished enough?

Of course not - and neither would the thousands of knuckle-draggers who've been shouting his case all this time. He'd be untouchable. And that's the problem: there's a double standard in operation because it was 'just' rape and she was 'just a slag'.

[Sir C]

Well until recently he was a convicted rapist... so not wanting your FC to sign him seems a normal thing to me.... would your company be happt to employ a convicted rapist if he was out on appeal?

Are you saying that convicted criminals, having served an approrpiate sentence, should be denied employment for life?

Golly.

[World's End Stella]

Would it not make more sense if we all stopped judging others, generally on the basis of very little direct knowledge, stopped hurling insults and abuse at each other, accepted that lives, actions and events may be complex and compromised, and occasionally checked our own eye beams/motes/whatevers?

Yes, absolutely. And the sanctimonious muppets calling for him to never work in football again did precisely the opposite.

[Sir C]

Yes, absolutely. And the sanctimonious muppets calling for him to never work in football again did precisely the opposite.

Of course they did. Everyone must be seen to be virtuous, ideally more virtuous than the next bloke.

I call this syndrome 'Ian Harvey'.

[Monty92]

What type of behaviour are you objecting to? If his evidence is true, he engaged in casual sex with a girl in the company of his friend. Are you claiming some moral sexual high ground here?

Oh you make it sound so wholesome and genteel! Running round the back of the hotel to spy through be window on a pissed chick ****ing your mate? Not for me, Clive.

[Burney]

Yes, absolutely. And the sanctimonious muppets calling for him to never work in football again did precisely the opposite.

Different rules apply in the public eye. All poor old Frank Bough did was have a taste for coke and hookers and the poor sod never worked again. See also Ron Atkinson, Andy Gray, Richard Keys, etc, etc.