[SaltergateBorn]

Thanks for that, SCO.

On the question of `no bad publicity`, you`re probably right. in the short term it certainly isn`t going to do the club`s reputation a lot of good and there is the chance of his being found guilty at the end of the retrial which could make the damage more long-lasting. That`s why, although I don`t pretend to be comfortable with the decision and on balance probably wish they hadn`t made it, I actually think that the club`s decision to offer him a contract is a very brave one. They must be thinking, like you (and me, as it happens) that he will probably be acquitted at the retrial and that that will take some of the heat out of the situation. They may be right on that one, they may be wrong.

As regards the the timing of the signing, I was about to go into great detail about why I thought the club moved now rather than waiting until after the trial, but I`ve just seen Dev`s new post so won`t bother. He`s said pretty much what I was going to say, and far more concisely. Also, I really don`t see a problem with Ched Evans playing before the trial. If one us were waiting to go to Court, would we not be allowed to continue working in the meantime? Why should a footballer be any different?

I must say that I didn`t follow the original trial very closely so really don`t have much idea about the evidence on which the conviction was based, but I`ll be following the retrial VERY closely; obviously. I also wasn`t aware of the abuse that the girl had received from the Evans family; if that`s true, I agree that it is completely disgusting and inexcusable. It doesn`t alter my general view, though, about the balance of anonymity allowed to the accuser and the accused in these cases.

By the way, before I forget.
Happy Birthday, Dev

[Lord Snooty]

I did follow the trial and my skin crawls at the thought of this excuse for a man being welcomed back into the footballing brotherhood. If he'd accepted his punishment and apologised for his actions, fair enough. But he didn't. He won't.
Instead he's putting this young woman through it all again.

Crunt!

---

Oh and Happy birthday, young Devon.

[bluepooch]

From a purely football point of view the reason we signed him is because potentially we could have got the bargain of the century.
The people who are disgusted with the signing hopefully can enlighten me on why the sentence was quashed.Apologies if this has already been answered in previous posts .

[Devongone]

Yes Snoots the quashed verdict puts the girl through it all again. Were he a defendant saying he wasn't even there and no it wasn't him I could understand that ......... but his contention is apparently going to be that it somehow slips within the definition of consensual (at least in his mind) seems to teeter along a dividing line between the criminal and the merely extraordinarily vile. I know I don't have to like our centre forward, but this is a hard one to take. I must say though that the conclusion of the original trial that Evans was a rapist, whereas his Port Vale friend had engaged in consensual sex, despite his having commissioned Evans' act knowing the girl's ability to say yes or no was minimal, didn't seem much like justice either.

I don't know what the new evidence that prompted the re-trial will be, but I hope our Chief Executive and Chairman will have the guts to attend court throughout, because he is now our player. He did something vile, but he doesn't have to be friendless all his life. If we want him on the pitch we should be with him in the courtroom.

It might seem an empty gesture but we have a posh new stadium - we could offer free meeting and conference space to any women's group campaigning on behalf of victims of rape, sexual or any other form of violence. Why? To show we haven't only tried to grab the bargain of the century but we are part of the human race.

We also have to take into account he might not even have made the team by October .......

Thanks for the Happy Birthday wishes. Nobody expects to be a Beatles song.

[spireitematt]

Think we just have to wait and see what happens but I think this could come back to haunt us. Why couldn't we have waited till after the trial to sign him?

Many happy returns Devon

[bluepooch]

I thought you'd done with the club Matt.
H bday Devon

[spireitematt]

I thought you'd done with the club Matt.
H bday Devon

No I'm not done with the club. I was supporting the club before DA, CT and Evans came along and I will be supporting the club a lot longer after they have left. Will I attend games? I don't know I'm torn.

[St Charles Owl]

At the moment I don't think Chesterfield have done anything wrong as such, I am surprised by the timing of it but as Dev said had they waited along with everyone else until the re-trial was decided then if he is found not guilty then there is little chance that Chesterfield would have been able to compete to sign him.

Snoots, you are wrong labeling him a rapist, the court of appeal have quashed that conviction, so he is now once again charged with the crime awaiting trial and innocent until proven guilty. As regards what he did, its horrible behaviour, it was no doubt horrible for the girl and its something no one want to see their children involved in. We may not like that behaviour and the attitudes connected to it but if he is found not guilty then no crime was committed according to the law and as such he should be free to pursue his career. At the end of the day none of us were in the court at the first trial and as of yet none of know what this new evidence is or where it came from, for me we have to let the legal system do its job and decide his fate.

As I understand it Chesterfield have a clause in his contract that allows them to terminate it if they want to if he is found guilty.

[Devongone]

St Charles I wish it were your club, or Huddersfield or anyone else ........ and yes if we had waited till October and a different verdict were reached this time (and god knows how the girl would cope with that for the rest of her life ....) bigger clubs, like yours, would have been wondering (and more) whether he was worth a gamble. 35 goals in 42 games as the last form of a free agent who can't afford to demand big wages .......... teams in the Championship would have been in for him and it wouldn't have been a Chesterfield problem.

If he's found guilty again I'll have very mixed feelings about what the club should do. Saying to him, you squirm through some loophole successfully and we'll keep you, fail and we might ditch you like a pariah sounds as inhuman as his apparent behaviour towards the girl. At some stage somebody has to be better than this. We kind of smirk about his girlfriend and her rich dad, but when things were at their worst she stood by him and said she loved him. I find that far more life enhancing than get yourself off on a couple of technicalities and we'll ride your goals all the way to the play-offs.

MATT - go to the games, always make your feelings known, but hurting yourself isn't going to right any wrong ..... or save the girl concerned. Good men like you can only hope eventually to change the world enough so that almost no one would consider behaving in this way, and women won't feel the system is so rigged against them that they would rather live with sexual crimes committed against them, than report them.

[SaltergateBorn]

I suspect that this thread has pretty much run its course now, as there really isn`t a lot left to say; and that`s probably a good thing.

However, I was talking to my son about this last night. He`s a Forest fan ( I know; I blame the parents as well) so has no axe to grind either way. However, more to the point he`s also a lawyer. He read through the posts on this thread and cringed at one or two of them. He made a couple of points that I thought I`d pass on, for what they`re worth.

1. We have a law of libel in this country; he`s of the opinion that - given that under the law Ched Evans is currently an innocent man - one or two of the posts are sailing pretty close to that particular wind.

2. Now that the case is going for retrial, it is once again `sub judice`. Apparently `contempt of court' also comes into play in these circumstances if anything is said in a public forum - which this is - that could be considered prejudicial to either side or an attempt to sway the outcome of the new trial.

I doubt very much whether any Court of Law is going to take our ramblings sufficiently seriously to consider them relevant in either case, but I just thought I`d mention it.