Convicted rapist Ched Evans faces a legal battle that could run for more than 14 months if he is to clear his name. It means that the footballer, a former Welsh international who turned 26 last month, may have not played a professional football match for four years by the time a decision is taken on whether his conviction should stand.
Having spent two and a half years in prison, and despite keeping fit, it would mean Evans returning to the game distinctly rusty. However, previous football convicts have returned to resume their careers: in August 2007 Lee Hughes was signed by Oldham Athletic after serving half a six-year sentence for causing death by dangerous driving. He was released in August 2004 by West Bromwich Albion following his conviction.
Evans, found guilty of raping a drunk young woman in a hotel room in Rhyl, north-east Wales, in 2011, has been shunned by clubs following the furore surrounding his release from prison last autumn. He is attempting to have his conviction overturned as he seeks a return to football. With little prospect of playing in the UK and difficulties in playing abroad because he is still on licence, Evans is running out of opportunities. Both his former club, Sheffield United, and Oldham had considered signing him, only to discount the idea after sponsors of the League One sides threatened to withdraw and threats were made to staff. Succeeding in having his conviction quashed now appears Evans’s best hope of playing again after politicians, commentators, sponsors and celebrities have condemned any club showing an interest in him.
Last month Evans’s legal team asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to consider an application for his case to be heard by the court of appeal. They believe they have new evidence that will help his claim. Despite the case being made a priority referral, the commission is expected to take months to decide.
The average length of time it takes for the CCRC to refer a case is 38 weeks, according to the commission’s annual report. If the case is submitted to the court of appeal, where statistically it has a 70% chance of succeeding, a decision on whether to quash the conviction may not be reached for up to six months. This is to allow time for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether it will oppose the appeal and for Evans’s legal team to prepare their case based on guidance from the commission. If this scenario were to play out, it would mean a decision would not be handed down until the end of March 2016 – towards the end of next season.
Evans is aware that much of the fury directed at him is down to his refusal to apologise for his actions, something that the legal system recognises is a major step in an offender’s successful rehabilitation. Last week, in an attempt to defuse the situation, he issued a qualified apology in which he acknowledged: “Whilst I continue to maintain my innocence, I wish to make it clear that I wholeheartedly apologise for the effect that that night in Rhyl has had on many people, especially the woman concerned.” His apology comes amid a growing backlash against what Evans called the “mob rule” tactics that have seen him become a footballing pariah. A number of high-profile names have supported his right to return to the game. Several have gone further and questioned the safety of Evans’s conviction.
Commentator Rod Liddle has said “there are grave doubts about his conviction” and last week Hull City manager Steve Bruce declared: “When you look at the case in detail, and I don’t think most people have really because they have just seen Ched Evans as a convicted rapist, but when you look at the case and the evidence, then certainly Ched has got a case.”
Journalist and broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer, speaking on the BBC’s Question Time, said: “If I was on that jury, on what I have read in a lot of detail of that case and the appeals, I would not have convicted him. If we are going to go around convicting drunk men for having drunk sex with drunk women who don’t remember, we are going to be imprisoning a hell of a lot of young men.”
However, even if Evans were to clear his name, it looks unlikely that the player who started his career with Manchester City, scored 35 goals for Sheffield United in his last full season with the club will enjoy the success he experienced before going to prison.
