What a brilliant and eloquently written post Z. I am sorry to hear what happened to you, but must say I agree with what you have to say on this case:
I have analysed as much of the available documentation on this case as I can find and I agree totally with you, Nedusa and others that the verdict ‘stinks to high heaven’. There are so many anomalies and unaired flaws in the crown’s evidence that I feel sorry for Evans.
I will not go into all of the discrepancies I believe I have discovered because it will take another long post which I know people are fed up of from me, but I will air just a couple of points.
Drugs and alcohol are mind-altering substances. Excessive intake of either alters the physiological state of the brain to such a degree from its normal state that ‘temporary insanity’ can occur, yet I do not know of one instance where any judge has conceded this fact in any criminal case or allowed it as a mitigating factor when sentencing a male who committed a crime whilst ‘drugged up’ or ‘pissed out of his brains.
Yet the judiciary have no problem at all in determining that when a female in a rape trial is drugged or drunk from self administered drugs and drink, it affects her mental capacity to such a degree that it renders her; “in no position to form a capacity to consent to sexual intercourse”.
In this particular case, the same ‘complainant’ who was deemed to be so drunk that she was incapable of consenting to sex - even when the only testimony was that she had indeed consented – could eat pizza from a box at sometime after 3 am, and sometime after 4.15 am she had the spatial awareness to know that she was in an hotel room, and the lucidity of mind to ask McDonald "You're not going to leave me, are you?"
Some may recall very famous footage of David Hasselhof being so drunk that he couldn’t talk, stand up to eat pizza, or even find his mouth with the pizza. I am sure this constitutes being very drunk – far more drunk than the complainant was on the night in question (who
could walk, talk and stand up and eat pizza) - but I am certain that even in his advanced state of drunkenness, Hasselhoff would certainly had known had someone tried to bugger him or perform oral sex on him.
So how drunk does someone really have to be, in order not to be aware that someone is performing non-consensual oral sex on them, or full intercourse with all the penetration, bumping and grinding, and grunting and groaning involved, before screaming out or fighting the ‘rapist’ off?
I would say virtually comatose.
Yet the complainant here was clearly not comatose according to the evidence, and she bore no traces of physical injury or other marks consistent with being forcibly raped or fighting off her attacker. Nor did she scream, cry out, or fight off any attacker, because in his evidence, Burrough - the Night Porter - was directly outside the door while Evans was having sex with her , but testified only to hearing the sounds of sexual intercourse and nothing else to concern him.
Much has been made of the fact that the sexual activity was ‘filmed’ by two friends of Evans and I believe this was viewed as particularly degenerate by both judge and jury, as indeed by most on here, but I am more interested in whether the film was produced in court as evidence by either side because surely it would at the very least give some idea of the circumstances under which the sex was occurring.
I am even more interested in the fact that the filming occurred only until “the room curtains were closed”, and I’d like to know who closed them and why, because it destroys any contention that the two filmed at Evans’ behest or with his awareness, because he would hardly close the curtains or allow them to be closed if he was complicit in the filming.
If only there was the space for more.
Anyway Z, I applaud you.
