Does anyone understand this case?

[emmie]

one man was acquitted, the other goes to jail for five years. I watched this on the news last night and wondered why both were not jailed. I am aware it's an issue of consensual sex, but how do you when you are so completely blotto.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17781842

[Gromit]

EvianBaby

// ...where we're this girls friends? Why did they allow her to get in such a state? Why did they allow her to leave alone with a stranger? //

Interesting you are blaming the girl's friends and not the footballers friends.

[EvianBaby]

I'm not blaming her friends, simply questioning where they were but yes, I see your point. Why did the blokes friends allow them to get involved in all that? Why didn't they try and persuade them it was a bad idea.

Maybe it's something that happens every weekend in their circles and they've been lucky enough to never get caught out before.

[jno]

I take your point, JJ, but if you're alert enough to enjoy it, can it really be said you're too intoxicated to consent? I have no idea how drunk this woman was (or whether drinks were spiked), and I'm not sure how even sensitive chaps like footballers are supposed to be able to tell, either.

But unless she was getting more intoxicated as the evening wore on (which is possible even when you've stopped drinking) it's unclear to me how she could be sober enough to consent to one man's advances but too drunk for the other's.

[friedgreentomato]

EB are you serious?

This girl was in no state to give consent the girl was raped - no man with an morals would have sex with her!

[joggerjayne]

Unfortunately, judging by what you see on the telly, when their friend went off with a professional footballer, they were probably thinking Good for her, and We're going to have a friend in WAG circles, and She's going to get loads of money. I bet they weren't thinking, She's going to get raped.

No matter how many times you see in the newspapers that footballers are just a bunch of scumbag thugs, girls still queue up to go off with them.

[EvianBaby]

Serious about what FG? I've already said I don't condone what they did but she got too plastered to be able to look after herself (I'm afraid I don't completely buy her claim she may have been spiked) and as it wasn't as if she was dragged back unwillingly and it appears she consented to sex with the first guy. The blokes, particularly the one that's landed in jail were idiots for thinking it was a good idea but I suspect it's no exception to any other weekend around any part of Thr country with lots of men and women.

[joggerjayne]

EB ...

That's right. Guys and girls go out, get ratted, meet in clubs and bars, go off and have sex.

Crikey, I live at the seaside ... you see it happening ALL the time. On a Saturday night, the clubs here are HEAVING. There are thousnads of strangers, trying to get off with each other. A lot of them will succeed. And ...

What happens on the odd occasion when someone regrets it, and says she (or he??) was too drunk to consent?

Well, THIS is what happens!

[EvianBaby]

Exactly JJ. It's not something I think I'd want to do myself but who's to say I won't go out tonight, drink way too much, meet a guy, feel free of inhibitions, go back to his, have sex with him, wake up tomorrow feeling ashamed of myself and then what..... Tell people he raped me because I was too off my face to realise what I was doing.

[emmie]

well none of us know the full story i admit, but i would like to think, though it obviously doesn't mean we agree, that she would have been far too gone to consent to anything, and any decent man would have put her in a taxi. Her friends should have seen her safely home, or at least kept an eye out. Perhaps more will come out in the news, or the bloke who was jailed will put in an appeal.