CHED EVANS ‘FLED DOWN FIRE ESCAPE AFTER SEX ATTACK’
FOOTBALLER Ched Evans raped a woman who was too intoxicated to consent in a hotel room before leaving through a fire escape door, a court has heard.
The 27-year-old striker, who now plays for League One side Chesterfield, is facing a retrial over allegations he attacked the complainant in May 2011.
Evans was previously found guilty of rape but this conviction was later quashed by the Court of Appeal, Cardiff Crown Court was told.
Former Manchester City and Sheffield United star Evans denies the single charge of rape against him.
On the first day of the retrial, the jury was told the attack took place in a room at the Premier Inn near Rhyl, north Wales.
The victim, who cannot be named, arrived at the hotel with a man called Clayton McDonald, who had been out drinking and socialising with Evans.
Simon Medland QC, prosecuting, said Mr McDonald phoned Evans from a taxi in the early hours to tell him: “I’ve got a girl.”
Evans is said to have arrived at the hotel room about 15 minutes later. Both men separately had sex with the victim, it is alleged.
McDonald was later acquitted of raping the woman, while Evans was convicted of the offence following a trial at Caernarfon Crown Court.
“There is no room for concluding that the complainant could have consented to sex with this defendant,” Mr Medland told the jury.
Intoxicated
“We submit that the evidence will show that the only connection between Ched Evans and the complainant was once he was in the hotel room with the ‘girl’ which McDonald had ‘got’.
“Did he have sex with her whilst McDonald was himself present?
“Was this what the complainant was consenting to?
“We submit that she was that intoxicated that she didn’t really know what on earth was happening... and that she was raped by this young footballer, not that she had consensual sex with him. “Sex without consent is rape. “Having finished in that room, Ched Evans then left surreptitiously by the fire exit door, not going back through the reception of the hotel.”
Mr Medland said the night before the alleged rape, Evans had paid £92 for a hotel room under Mr McDonald’s name before the pair “went out on the town”.
Speaking of the defendant, he said: “He was quite a local celebrity. He was a handsome and fit professional footballer, and as such a wealthy young man.”
The complainant had gone out in the early hours of the morning. CCTV images showed her looking “very unsteady on her feet”, Mr Medland said.
“She had certainly had several drinks, but not really any more than she normally would – perhaps indeed fewer – and yet it seemed when she looked back on all this that she was much more drunk than she would expect to have been.
“You will see footage from CCTV of her trying to walk. She is seen to be very unsteady on her feet.
“One explanation which she gives for this is a feeling – and it can’t be more than that – that her drink may have been ‘spiked’.”
The prosecutor added that it could not be proved that her drink had been spiked and he did not suggest that Evans had done so “in any way”.
After leaving the bar, the complainant went to a kebab shop, where she appeared “really drunk” and could not speak properly, the court heard.
“She fell over two or three times, which she’s never done before,” Mr Medland said.
Docile
“She dropped – and left – her handbag, she collided, on the way out, with one of the delivery cars.”
She then got into a taxi with Mr McDonald, with the driver describing her as “drunk, very docile and not with it”.
During the journey, Mr McDonald is alleged to have called Evans and told him “I’ve got a girl”.
“Did she know that she’d been ‘got’ by that stage?” Mr Medland asked the jury.
“Was she in a frame of mind to know? Why was McDonald telling Ched Evans that anyway?”
The case continues.