Ched Evans, my view

Friday the 20th of April 2012, was a dark day for the football club i support. The striker and star player, Ched Evans was found guilty of raping a 19 year old girl, and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. At the time i was incredibly upset and sad that a player who i had supported, and given the benefit of the doubt to until such a time he was convicted or cleared in a court of law.

I'd followed the trail closely for a few days, and learned a lot of stuff i didn't know before, a lot of it due to the legal system, and a couple of legal professionals on a football forum that i frequent, and i gained a lot of insight, and the details of the night seemed murky, and i was not 100% convinced that he was guilty of the crime that he had committed but i had a nagging feeling that he would get found guilty.

I find any form of sexual assault on a woman, disgraceful, sickening and people who sexually attack and abuse women, are scum, the lowest of the low, and deserve having their bollocks cutting off. I find the act of rape pretty indefensible, and sickening, as i always imagine what it would be like if someone raped a female member of my family, and it gets my blood boiling at the mere thought of it.

I also believe in making my own decisions and we are all responsible for all our own thought processes, and thinking about way to come to make decisions, and therefore if we make a decision then i usually take it was my moral obligation to follow the decision that i have made, as i would not be true to myself or others if i didn't follow anything views, that i had formed through my own educated opinion.

One thing that based on the evidence that i have heard and seen, and i thank the power of the internet for giving me a lot of information, and enabling me to look in-depth at the evidence that is presented before me. And i strongly believe that Ched Evans is not guilty of the offence of rape, and i strongly feel that he has been set up on this occasion, and that a serious miscarriage of justice has taken place.

I base this opinion on a lot of stuff that i have seen in the social networking media, including a lot of support from people in Ched Evan's hometown of Rhyl, a lot of support from his team-mates, and a lot of support from the world of football, which i don't think wouldn't have been the case if it was clear cut, and Ched had been guilty of the offence of Rape.

What does concern me, and makes me angry is the girl who has been allegedly raped, has not been painted in a particularly good light. The day after she was allegedly raped she the toxicology report that she had Cocaine and Cannabis in her system, and therefore must had been spiked. From my own personal knowledge of drugs, then Cocaine wouldn't have made her docile, in fact the quite the opposite, and Cannabis is a drug that is difficult to spike somebody with unless you lace their food with it, and lets face it, if you was going to spike somebody then it would be a date rape drug rather than Cannabis.

The girl is not thought of highly in local circles in Rhyl from what i have read, where she has been named and several allegations against her Character have been made, including accusations that she has a Cocaine habit, she has already made an allegation of rape against somebody else in the past, she has a reputation of being an 'easy lay', and her family are not spoken of particularly highly. Then this was made worse by the girl in questions twitter account being made public, including her speaking of what she was going to spend the money on when she had her windfall (Pink Mini Coopers, and trips to Australia and Ibiza), and also allegations that she was out on the lash the following weekend. This to me doesn't not stack up with what you would normally expect from the victim of a rape, who to my mind would be traumatised to the extent that she would be mentally affected to the extent that it would be a long time until she plucked up the courage to go out drinking alcohol on a night out.

With this case too much doesn't stack up, including a lot of things that have appeared about her, and i think that had the jury had seen some of this evidence, which admittedly not admissible in a court of law, then i think that a different verdict would have been reached.

Like i have said, this is only my opinion so people are free to criticise it, and call me every name under the sun, but i have my right to my own opinion and i stand by that. I think due to the seriousness of the allegation of rape, that it is something that making a false allegation of for financial gain for is almost as bad as the act of rape, and i hope that in this case the allegation is correct on the basis of that if the allegation is found to be false and made for purely financial gain, it is something that is nearly as bad as the act of rape itself.

For a man to accused of rape, it is socially degrading, demeaning and an accusation of rape is something that a man will have to wear for the rest of his life, and walk round with the social stigma, which if is he is genuinely guilty then it is genuinely deserved, but if it is a false allegaton then it is something that the person making the false allegation will have to live with for the rest of their lives, and that is mainly destroying the life of someone who is innocent.

As for my own view, i think that the only crime that Ched Evans' is guilty of is that of being stupid enough of allowing himself to get drawn in a situation where there was the potential of an allegation of rape, but i think that in this case the girl in question knew what has happening at the time, consented to having sexual intercourse with Ched Evans, and purely and simply i think that Ched Evans is not guilty.

The final thought on this is that here has been a couple of footballers convicted of rape during the last couple of years. Marlon King and Tes Bramble, but in both of those cases there was nowhere near the amount of support and the nowhere near the same amount of questions being placed against the guilty verdict, and i think that is something that has to be question why it has happening now with this case and not those.

The Weakness Of The Mind

I'm 34 years old. Grown up, got a decent job, house and car, but i do have a dirty little habit, and one that i'm ashamed of, and that is for the last 20 years i have been a smoker.

During the last 20 years i have made several attempts to give up. Some have lasted a couple of hours, some have gone on for a few weeks, but it would be wrong to say that some have been more succesful that others, and this is another case of one being unsuccessful, and i hate myself for it.

I got up yesterday, faithfully stuck my nicotine patch on, and felt a little bit of pride at breaking the 3 week barrier of not having a cigarette and beating the odd craving here and there. During the last 3 weeks i have felt a lot better, kept up with my running and progressing with that, by running further and not getting as out of breath, kept up with my healthy eating, and generally felt in better shape than i have done for years.

Yet, at work tonight, and it was a good night at work, relatively stress free, and pretty straightforward, i felt the urge for a cigarette and told myself that i can have some cigarettes and start again on Sunday, so i ended up going home from work in the car, and stopping off at a 24 hour garage, and buying 20 Marlboro Lights and smoking them until my heart was content on the drive home from work, and now i'm sat in the kitchen enjoying a well earned Jim Beam and Coke after work, writing this out, and got another fag on the go.

I feel stupid, i feel weak and i feel like i have let myself down, let others down who have had faith in me, and helped to encourage me in my attempt to kick the evil weed. By not having a cigarette for 3 weeks i'd felt good, i'd felt proud of what i had done, and now all that has gone to waste.

I'm going to go to bed in a minute and grab some sleep before getting back up at dinnertime, and then get out on the beer, watch Sheffield United and then have a good night up town, but today i' m going to smoke and i'm going to smoke as much as i want, but then when i wake up on Sunday morning, i'm going to lament the demise of Attempt Number 156 to give up smoking and get cracking on Attempt Number 157, and hopefully it will last for the rest of my life.