BBC sorry over Buerk rape remark

THE BBC has been forced to apologise after presenter Michael Buerk criticised the Ched Evans rape victim for being drunk.

The 25-year-old Welsh striker Evans was released from prison on Friday having served half of a f ive-year sentence for raping a woman in a hotel room.

In his trail for the programme Moral Maze, Buerk said: “Nobody comes out of the Ched Evans rape case with any credit — not the victim who’d drunk so much she could barely stand, nor the two footballers who had sex with her in the most sordid of circumstances.”

A Radio 4 spokesman said: “There was no intention to suggest the victim was in any way at fault and we apologise if the way this live trail was phrased suggested this.

“Tonight’s Moral Maze will ask whether a convicted rapist who maintains his innocence should be entitled to get his job back.”

Katie Russell, Rape Crisis England and Wales, said: “To infer that being drunk is in any way ‘morally’ comparable to committing the serious and violent crime of rape is deeply offensive and will undoubtedly have caused considerable distress to the huge numbers of survivors of sexual violence who will inevitably have been listening.”

Evans, meanwhile, is “determined to continue the fight” to clear his name and return to playing.

In a video interview on his website, he said his lawyers had already taken steps to overturn the conviction.

He said the sex was consensual, adding that he made “an incredibly foolish decision” to cheat on partner Natasha Massey.”