The footballer Ched Evans told detectives interviewing him over the suspected rape of a 19-year-old waitress that he could have had his pick of any woman in the club he had been in that night.
Evans told officers: “We could have had any girl we wanted. When we go out it’s not uncommon to pick up girls. We’re footballers. Footballers are rich and they have money. That is what girls like.”
Evans, 27, claims he and fellow footballer Clayton McDonald had consensual sex with the teenager in a hotel following a night out in the seaside town of Rhyl, north Wales.
The woman has told the jury at Evan’s retrial that she woke up naked in the room with no memory of getting there and fearing she had been attacked after her drinks were spiked. The prosecution alleges she could not possibly have consented to sex as she was too intoxicated. Evans denies rape.
On day three of the trial, transcripts of a series of police interviews given by Evans, who has played for Manchester City, Sheffield United and Norwich, were read out.
Evans said he had grown up with McDonald and the pair had had a “threesome” once before after he broke into the first team of the club he was then with. He said: “The girls they like it. They’ve got two footballers there. Wherever we go we attract girls.”
The defendant told the officers his own girlfriend did not like that aspect of his life. “The girls do throw themselves at you. That’s part and parcel of being a footballer.”
On the night of the incident in May 2011 Evans told officers he had been in a bar with McDonald and other friends. He said there were “lovely birds” in the bar. Later McDonald texted him from a taxi telling him: “I’ve got a bird,” said Evans.
Evans, who was 22 at the time, assumed his friend was taking her back to a room he had booked and paid for at a Premier Inn. Evans told officers he decided to go with his brother and another man to the hotel to look in through the window at McDonald and the woman “for a laugh”.
The curtains were closed so Evans went to the reception, obtained a keycard and let himself into the room. Evans said McDonald was having sex with the woman. He said his friend asked the woman: “Can my mate join in?” She replied: “Yeah,” he told officers.
Evans said McDonald opened the curtains of the room and there was laughing and giggling from outside. He texted his brother to suggest he leave.
The footballer told the officers he had sex with the woman. McDonald left and he followed him quickly. “I’ve got a girlfriend. I didn’t want to stay in case my girlfriend rang me,” he said. Evans said the woman appeared to go to sleep as he departed via a fire exit.
Asked if he was happy the woman had consented to sex, Evans said: “[She] was getting herself in different positions. She looked to me like she had capacity.”
Quizzed about how drunk the woman was, Evans said: “I would say she was fine. She was talking.” He added: “I couldn’t say how drunk she was or how drunk she wasn’t. She wasn’t acting drunk. She wasn’t slurring her words. She was moving around herself.” Evans said he did not know the woman. He told officers: “I can’t remember her face.”
Earlier on Thursday the court heard statements from friends of the alleged victim about her distress the morning after the incident.
One friend said she arrived at her home and banged loudly on the door. “When I opened the door she was crying hysterically. She was sobbing, trying to catch her breath and I gave her a hug to calm her down,” the friend said.
“When she calmed down, she told me that she had woken up in the Premier Inn naked and had no idea how she had got there.”
In her statement, the woman’s mother said her daughter called and asked her to pick her up from the hotel. “She got into the car and said: ‘I haven’t got a clue what happened last night,’” said the mother. “She said she just couldn’t remember how she got to the Premier Inn. She was frustrated, upset and getting more and more upset.”
McDonald was acquitted of rape at an earlier trial. Evans was convicted but his appeal against conviction was allowed.
The trial continues.
