Wednesday, December 09, 2015 

The petitioners and the Fury.

As another miserable year draws to a close, it does so with an air of deja vu.  The year began with demands that Ched Evans be denied employment with any football league club after being released on licence from his jail term for rape.  It ends with demands for Tyson Fury, not convicted of anything but with a whole array of obnoxious opinions, to be denied so much as a place on the shortlist for Sports Personality of the Year.

Sports Personality of the Year has always been a misnomer; some might go so far as say an oxymoron.  Rare has the public vote ever been about personality as opposed to achievement, with it only coming into play when there is something resembling a choice on offer, as opposed to the usual one or two with the main claim to being the outstanding performer of the year.  And let's face it: when Zara Phillips can win (worth noting is that the infinitely more deserving Beth Tweddle came third that year), despite having no discernible personality beyond being a minor Royal and on the basis of being quite good on top of a horse trained to do something you can't so much as gamble on, there has in the past been something rotten at the heart of Dodge.

Fury everyone agrees does have a personality.  He is as Barney Ronay puts it in an excellent profile a more complex figure than merely a boxer with a sideline in expressing his unpalatable religiously influenced views on homosexuality, women and the fast approaching apocalypse.  Not many pugilists will during their careers admit to any sort of weakness, let alone as Fury has talk about depression and suicide.  Not many "dickheads" with boneheaded, antediluvian views will be able to outfight and outthink an opponent like Wladimir Klitschko, proving the experts wrong.  Not many from Fury's background will have a moment in the sun beyond getting the chance to appear on a Channel 4 documentary, to be gawped at, laughed about and feared all at the same time.

Fury in short breaks all the agreed upon rules of being a sportsperson in 2015.  No, you can't be a completely blank canvas and succeed, but nor can you be any more divisive than say, Andy Murray is, criticised in the past for coming across as grumpy and morose.  The vast majority will shrink from making any sort of comment on politics whatsoever, not least because it's often written into their contracts and is bound to come into consideration when sponsors make their decisions on whom to fund.  Only once you've achieved the success of someone like Murray can you then start to make your views known on a topic as controversial as Scottish independence and get away with it, personally and financially.

We are then back in the parallel universe where some truly believe the aura of a sportsperson can be so overwhelming, it can subvert every norm and value inculcated in an individual since birth.  Ched Evans, the argument went, could not just waltz back into his former position at Sheffield United as he was a role model.  It would send the message that you could commit a crime as terrible as rape and be welcomed back afterwards as though nothing had happened.  With Evans there were the further extenuating circumstances that he continued to claim his innocence (his case has since been referred back to the Court of Appeal), that he was out on licence rather than having completed his sentence, and that his victim had been repeatedly named and abused on social media by supporters of Evans, connected with him or not.  The campaign as it was succeeded, and failing the quashing of his conviction it seems Evans will not play professional football again.  To me at the time it seemed a punishment out of all proportion with the offence, however grave; others felt strongly the other way.

With Fury there are no such extenuating circumstances.  Nothing he has said is or should be illegal, as Peter Tatchell for one has set out while condemning his views.  The absurdity of not so much as wanting the wider public to be allowed to reject him in a vote is made clear by the petition itself, which says


The BBC clearly do not understand that by nominating Fury, who has on a number of occasions expressed homophobic views and compared homosexuality to paedophilia, they are putting him up as a role model to young people all over the UK and the world.

In this strange view of how things work, it's not Fury's achievement of winning the world heavyweight championship that makes him a role model, it's the BBC's recognising of his success.  Leave aside that you can look up to someone's sporting prowess while at same time despising them in every other respect, as you can with the man Fury was named after, or as will become the case with Oscar Pistorius, and you're left with the impression the petition starter truly believes if only the media were to ignore or ostracise people who make their unpleasant views known in public, the remaining barriers to LBGT participation in sport would fall away.

Scott Cuthbertson presumably doesn't believe that, as discrimination is far more insidious and embedded in both sport and society as a whole than encapsulated by the brash statements of a throwback, and yet both he and 130,000 others seemingly don't want to chance the British public deciding otherwise.  While it can often seem as though the great British value of tolerance isn't all it's cracked up to be, do the signatories truly believe someone who says a woman's place is either in the kitchen or "on her the back" and speaks in the same breath about homosexuality and paedophilia can win such a major award, rather than Jessica Ennis-Hill, whom Fury insulted?  Wouldn't those who signed it better serve their cause if they campaigned for Greg Rutherford, who has made clear his unhappiness about Fury's inclusion but decided not to withdraw?  Indeed, wouldn't this country be a better place if the ridiculous pretence was dropped that a person's talent, or when it comes to "reality" stars complete lack of, means they should be judged and treated more harshly?

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12/09/2015 11:59:00 pm | |

Monday, January 05, 2015 

2015: like 2014 never ended.

Ah, the new year.  A time for renewal, for doing things differently, for approaching your problems from a different angle, for every single fucking thing remaining exactly the fucking same.  Because dates, while obviously not insignificant, are incredibly arbitrary and events are not constrained by the mere fact it's now January rather than December.  Yeah, at heart I really am a true romantic.

We may as well then once again go over well trodden ground, not that this will mean anything to precisely anyone.  If I wasn't such a social disaster area, I'd probably have said at least something along the lines of err, hello first.  Or, alternatively, done the other intelligent thing and just acknowledged them and kept walking.  If I was too blunt, or it came across as rude, or exasperated, as it probably did, it wasn't my intention, although when you say "Is there any point in my trying to talk to you?" as your conversation opener it does rather invite the response I got.  It was my anxiety at work more anything.  Most likely it's all I would have got whatever I'd said.  It's only later, as always, that you think of what you should have said, how you should have responded, but taking no for an answer when it was always likely to be the answer is something, isn't it?  No, I'm not convinced by myself either.

Onto that there politics then, right?  How can anyone not rejoice knowing we have just the nigh on 5 exact months until we get the choice of either chaos or competence?  Stop sniggering at the back, Methuselah.  And please Cassandra, don't slash your wrists in front of the rest of the class.  Didn't you miss the whole one party's spiel being slightly less bullshitty than t'others over the winterval break?  No?  Shame it's all we're going to get for the best part of the year then.  On second thoughts, can you pass your knife to the front of the class please, Cass?

Nor is there any relief from the dominating story of 2014, the seemingly constant flow of sexual assault claims made against those in the public eye, both living and dead, bookended by the Met declaring the allegations made by a man that he witnessed the murder of boys at the hands of VIPs and politicians "credible and true".  Accepting a person's account is not of course the same thing as what they described having occurred, nor is it clear whether anyone is still alive that could be held accountable or brought to trial, which always makes declaring such things a little bit easier.  We can but wait for Theresa May to get round to finally sorting out exactly what kind of overarching inquiry we need, but little things like appearing next to her fellow Tory leadership rivals are clearly more pressing on her.

If there's one thing to say about the allegations made against Prince Andrew, and frankly it wouldn't have surprised me if someone had come along and said he'd caught Andrew frotting his dog, it's whether or not the media will treat them with more scepticism than previously due to the whole, err, royal angle.  Thankfully for them, it also involves a Maxwell, and just like with Savile, the media's lamentable failure to catch a crook while they're alive inevitably results in trying to make up for it afterwards.  That Ghislaine Maxwell has also decamped to America and become a socialite just makes it even better, and so there's no doubt: the bouncing Czech's daughter clearly procured underage girls for the rich and famous.  Palace crisis!  Sex slavery!  Photograph of all three grinning while Andrew has his arm round Jane Doe #3's waist!  It's disgusting, prurient, no one has any idea whether the allegations are true or not, and it sells newspapers like billy-o.

And so, finally, we must sadly move on to Chedwyn Evans.  Not a single thing has altered since Sheffield United decided they couldn't in the face of a furore employ him as though nothing had happened.  I disagreed with that decision, but more than respected those who argued with force it sent a terrible message about how the victims of rape and sexual assault can be treated while the perpetrator can walk back into a high profile role apparently waiting for them.  With the returning to his old club angle gone, it seems to now be more about making an example of this particular person and this particular case rather the merits or demerits of those in the public eye convicted of serious crimes being able to resume their lives once they've served their sentence.

Not that Evans has fully served that sentence, and usually the rule is those convicted of serious offences who continue to maintain their innocence aren't eligible for early release.  David Conn in the Guardian also brings attention to some of the more objectionable parts of the Evans is innocent campaign's website, including CCTV footage of the woman, her face blurred, entering the hotel where she was raped, asking viewers to decide for themselves if she's too drunk to consent or not based wholly on that.  It also in the "Key and Undisputed Facts" section says Evans's fellow accused and acquitted friend Clayton McDonald texted Evans once he was with the victim saying "I am with a girl" or words to that effect.  The appeal court's ruling says this text in fact read "got a bird", which is a fairly major difference.  It also quotes out of any context tweets made by the victim where she talks about "winning big", where it is not in the slightest clear she is referring to, as the site implies, compensation.  The victim, repeatedly identified on social media by supporters of Evans, has moved house and changed her name 5 times in the intervening period.

There is little more to be said about the arguments both for and against Evans.  It seems strange to me the simple act of playing football, not even at Premier League level, hardly to be considered a position of real authority, is enough to make someone a role model and therefore to be celebrated more highly and by the same token judged more harshly and punished more severely if they offend against society.  Such however is the idol we have made of a game, a secular opiate of the people if there ever was one.

Evans' being a footballer doesn't enter into the case itself in any shape or form: he was just a footballer who committed a rape.  If there's any one reason to object to Evans returning to play, it's perhaps down to how there will be no respite for his victim until he retires: the simple act of looking at a paper, news site or watching TV will carry the potential for her to be reminded of the crime.  Should Oldham Athletic choose to sign Evans, the very least he could do, as he can't express remorse while maintaining his innocence, is to get those highly objectionable parts of the campaign website taken down and to issue an appeal to those who have supported him to stop hounding the woman he denies raping.  Considering his rabbit in the headlights past appearance in front of a camera, as little as that is likely to be too much to ask.

2015's shaping up just swell, isn't it?

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1/05/2015 11:59:00 pm | |

Tuesday, November 18, 2014 

Ched Evans is an unashamed rapist. That doesn't mean he shouldn't play football again.

Amid the outrage, the group resignation of patrons from Sheffield United Community Foundation and 160,000+ signatures calling for him not to be re-signed, you'll struggle to find any summary of how and why Chedwyn (you can see why he shortens it to Ched) Evans was convicted of rape, beyond that his victim was drunk and the jury decided that while she had consented to sex with Clayton McDonald, she did not with Evans.

This isn't because it suggests Evans is, as he claims, innocent, guilty only of infidelity to his girlfriend, who has supported him throughout.  If anything, it makes him look even worse.  According to the account provided by the Court of Appeal, the facts are these.  The victim  "literally stumbled across McDonald's path" some time after 3am on the morning of the 29/30th of May 2011.  CCTV footage from before then shows her falling over in a kebab shop, and indeed, she was such the worse for wear she left her handbag behind.  The taxi driver who took McDonald and the victim to a nearby Premier Inn said the victim's "upper clothing was somewhat dishevelled".  While in the taxi McDonald texted Evans "telling him that he had 'got a bird' or words to that effect".  The night porter at the Premier Inn described the victim as "extremely drunk".

Some time after the pair were showed to the room, Evans arrived with two other male friends.  Evans persuaded the porter to give him the key card to the room as he had "booked the room for a friend who no longer needed it".  McDonald and the victim stopped having sex when he opened the door.  This is when according to Evans the victim was asked whether he "could join in" and she replied in the affirmative.  The night porter, for whatever reason checking on what was happening, heard what he thought was a couple having sex and thought no more of it.  Evans' friends meanwhile were outside the bedroom window filming the goings on until the curtains were drawn.  It doesn't seem their recording picked up the exchange Evans says there was between him and the victim.

About half an hour later Evans and McDonald left the room.  McDonald spoke to the porter before leaving the hotel, telling him to look out for the girl in room 14 as she was sick, while Evans went through a fire exit.  Both men then went back to Evans' home.  The victim woke up at 11:30am with no memory of what had gone on, and straight away went to the police.

The prosecution's case was the room at the Premier Inn was booked for the "sole purpose of procuring a girl or girls later that night".  The defence stated Evans had in fact booked it for McDonald and a friend to use to stay in.  Despite being in Rhyl all evening, it seems McDonald hadn't succeeded in meeting anyone who wanted to go back to the hotel with him until by chance a young woman he must have realised was extremely drunk approached him and asked what he was doing.  The jury in acquitting McDonald and finding Evans guilty seems likely to have decided, as the Court of Appeal puts it
 
that even if the complainant did not, in fact, consent to sexual intercourse with either of the two men, that in the light of his part in what happened -- the meeting in the street and so on -- McDonald may reasonably have believed that the complainant had consented to sexual activity with him, and at the same time concluded that the applicant [Evans] knew perfectly well that she had not consented to sexual activity with him (the applicant).

They also note the jury might have considered the different ways in which McDonald and Evans left the hotel to have been relevant.

Regardless of what you think of the behaviour of all involved, the case was as the CoA puts it, a "classic case for decision by the jury".  A different jury might well have reached a different verdict on the same evidence.  Nonetheless, all of Evans' appeals to date have failed.  It could be he is the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice.  It could also be, and it has to be said this is my view, that both he and McDonald took despicable advantage of someone they must have known to have been incapable of truly consenting to sex.  When you then consider the further extenuating circumstances, that immediately after Evans' conviction the victim's name was being spread on Twitter and she was being denounced as a liar and worse, not to mention his wholesale lack of remorse, you can more than understand why some don't want to see Evans playing football for Sheffield United again.

Except the campaign against Evans isn't being fought on those grounds, for the good reason a person sent to prison shouldn't be stopped from returning to their job once released unless it was directly relevant to the crime, or if the conviction makes it impossible for them to resume, i.e. if they were in a position of true authority.  All the onus has instead been put on the "role model" argument, the exact same one so often snatched at by tabloids when they've uncovered a footballer having an affair or a celebrity taking drugs, having failed to prove hypocrisy.  This assumes first that anyone who plays football at a professional level can be held up as a role model, that the simple act of pulling on a football shirt elevates them above normal mortals and demands they show extra responsibility, lest anyone is naive enough to think what a player does off the pitch is just as worthy of emulation as what they do on it.  This is quite the burden to put on the shoulders of young players, whom regardless of their new found status are likely to be just as immature as their peers who aren't in the public eye.

Second, the argument seems to suggest some people can be so overawed by the status of someone they admire that any other bearing on their thinking, whether it be friends, parents or siblings can be disregarded.  There is perhaps something to Jean Hatchet stating that for Sheffield United to re-sign Evans would be to send a message that "men who commit such atrocious crimes will suffer only a small penance whilst the women they attack suffer for the rest of their lives", but Evans, whether he plays again for United or not, will forever be remembered as being convicted of rape and having caused this entire furore.  Some Sheffield United fans have responded in a way that gives credence to the claim re-signing Evans trivialises his offence, and the club while condemning the abuse meted out to Jessica Ennis-Hill could have justified its decision to allow Evans to train with the team instead of hiding behind the PFA's request far better, yet fans will nearly always defend their club when they perceive it as under attack, as we saw with Liverpool and Luis Suarez.  Sheffield United players have not worn t-shirts defending Evans for one thing.

It's also come to something when Julie Bindel, of all people, wonders if the campaigns against Dapper Laughs and Julien Deblanc aren't in danger of morphing into a censorship akin to the one her generation detested when it was led by Mary Whitehouse.  Evans is clearly a separate issue, but it does as she writes distract from dealing with the wider issue of misogyny and outdated attitudes in general in the game; when Richard Scudamore can say he wouldn't employ a rapist, but is more than happy to bully smaller clubs and remain friends with people who refer to women as "gash" then it's not as though an example is being set at the very top.  The underlying sentiment may be the right one; whether Evans and Sheffield United are the right target at the right time remains to be seen.

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11/18/2014 10:48:00 pm | |

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