Domestic & European Rugby Union 2018/19

[luke:lamf]

In a word, no. Well withing their rights too, of course, and I understand why the have done, but it's not particularly edifying as a society to vilify people who were found "not guilty" and to exert pressure to prevent them finding employment in their chosen field.

[paul_e]

This is a really difficult one because, the defence was, pretty much, that she was a bit of a goer and she was drunk and couldn't remember all the details of the night. I can't remember the full details but I did fol.low this one at the time and the way she was treated in the hearing was pretty horrific, with the defence focusing on how she was phrasing things and suggesting they showed she was making it up. There was a bit where he said she was on top and the defence then used that as evidence that she can't have been raped because of the position. To sum up the whole thing was dodgy as hell and a statement afterwards saying that he never intended to upset her (to paraphrase it) doesn't do much to counter a lot of the shit that came out earlier.

On that basis I think it's perfectly fair for a sponsor to decide they're uncomfortable with maintaining the relationship. I understand the counter argument that he was found not guilty and should be treated as such but for me the whole thing left a bad taste and I'm not surprised that holds true for marketing execs at diageo as well.

[dcdavecollett]

Reminds me of the Ched Evans saga -yes, he's not guilty of the rape charge, but.....

[paul_e]

Reminds me of the Ched Evans saga -yes, he's not guilty of the rape charge, but.....

... but that's mainly because his girlfriends family paid witnesses to come forward and tell everyone that she was a slag?

The point, in both cases, is that you've had a group of sportsmen 'taking turns' on a woman and then discrediting her when she says that she didn't want them to. Proving it either way is near impossible but the trend of raking up anything the 'victim' has ever done as proof that she was 'gagging for it' and therefore can't have been raped is a massive problem.

[dcdavecollett]

I agree.

The point I was making was that Evans got off on the main charge, but that didn't affect the fact that his reputation was rightly damaged because of the way he had behaved both during and after the incident.