Rape and Sport: A Life Sentence?

Ched Evans, a former professional footballer and convicted rapist, after serving half of a five year sentence, was offered the opportunity to train at his old club. This offer has now been withdrawn in the face of criticism from the public, patrons and sponsors.

Mr Evans claims that he is innocent of the crime and his lawyers have brought his case to the Criminal Cases Review Committee, seeking an appeal. It is essential, however, that his treatment is based on his actual legal position, not on a hypothetical future one.

At the heart of the issue is this: is rape such a horrific crime that it requires special licence conditions, conditions that might not be thought to be necessary even for some other serious crimes? 

The answer, I think, is ‘yes’. I would go further and argue that like murder, rape ought to incur a mandatory life sentence (rather than the current maximum life sentence) with a significant minimum ‘tariff’ of years to be served in prison. Licence conditions, therefore, only come into force after a considerable period of time and extend until the end of the perpetrator’s life.

Rape destroys lives in a uniquely terrible way; the minimal way for society to recognise this is to impose a life-sentence on those who commit the crime. I agree that it ought to be possible for criminals to be released from prison on licence once they have served their tariff and are deemed not to present an ongoing threat to others. Part of attaining that status, however, must be a full recognition that their crime has lasting effects on their victims and that this ought to be reflected in the conditions of their licence. One aspect of those conditions should be that rapists are precluded from certain activities where their victims might have to endure the sight of them being presented as celebrities or public figures. Rapists have denied themselves that privilege and a truly ‘reformed’ rapist ought to accept that such is the case.

A possible downside to this is that, initially, some juries might hesitate before delivering a guilty verdict because of the perceived ‘severity’ of the sentence. This would be based on wrong-thinking; a criminal conviction must always be beyond reasonable doubt: a very high standard of proof is already rightly required before anyone is deemed to be a criminal. Any anomalies would, I think soon be rectified as a ‘new normal’ emerged.

Ought Ched Evans to be allowed to play professional football again? The answer is, not unless he succeeds in having his conviction fully and finally overturned; anything less than this is an insult to all victims of rape and an indictment on us all.