Footballer Chad Evans left via fire escape after alleged rape, retrial jury hears

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 player Evans denies the single charge of rape against him.

On the first day of the retrial, a jury of seven women and five men were 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 of the following morning 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 the 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.

"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," he told the jury.

"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.

"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?"

A night receptionist saw Mr McDonald and the woman, who he later described as stumbling around, with a vacant expression on her face and "out of it".

The pair had arrived at the hotel at about 4am and went straight to room 14, which was on the ground floor of the two-storey 44-room hotel.

"Only about 15 minutes later, this defendant Ched Evans arrived. He was in a taxi," Mr Medland said.

"He asked for the key to room 14. The defendant (said) he had booked the room himself earlier the previous night 'for a person in a different name'.

"He said perhaps a curious thing - that his friend had 'gone home' and now he wanted to use the room.

"We say that it will be obvious that Ched Evans knew that McDonald was in the room."

Gavin Burrough, the night receptionist at the hotel, handed Evans - who had arrived with a number of other men - a key to the room.

He later saw the men from the taxi standing outside the window of room 14 and speaking to someone inside, Mr Medland said.

Mr Burrough then went past room 14 and could hear noises of people having sex inside, with a male voice asking about a sex act.

About 15 minutes later, Mr McDonald departed from the hotel in a taxi, while Evans left "surreptitiously by the fire exit door", Mr Medland told the jury.

The complainant awoke in pain and had minor visible injuries, the court heard.

"She remembers practically nothing of the events of that night and can only piece together some fragments of it," Mr Medland added.

"She remains convinced that her drink must have been spiked by someone."

Both Mr McDonald and Evans were later charged separately with raping the woman, with Mr McDonald acquitted after trial.

Mr Medland told the jury that Mr McDonald's acquittal was "no reflection on the case in relation to Ched Evans".

"There were at the time of the original trial, and now, different considerations for Ched Evans because the facts in respect of his actions and movements were different to those of Clayton McDonald," he said.

"He had not been in the taxi with her on the way to the hotel. She had not gone in to the hotel with him. She had not gone in to the room with him.

"There is no room for concluding that she could have consented to sex with this defendant."

He said the only connection between Evans and the woman was once he was in the hotel room with her.

"We submit that she was that intoxicated - for whatever reason - that she didn't really know what on earth was happening and that what the facts of this case show is that she was raped by this young footballer in that room, not that she had consensual sex with him," Mr Medland said.

"It is not a proper description, we suggest, to say that he had sex with her; it is more accurate to say that he 'did' sex to her. Sex without consent is rape."

Mr Medland asked the jury to put any preconceptions aside and decide the case on the evidence.

"This is especially important, you may feel, in a case like this, because many of you will know of this defendant," he said.

"He was at the time - and remains now - a well-known footballer."

Jurors were told that it can be common for young, single people to get drunk and have sex, and the trial is not concerned with moral behaviour.

"The central feature is the real heart of the case: the issue of consent," Mr Medland said.

"The complainant will not be able to tell you that she did consent.

"How could she? There is good reason to conclude, we submit, that she didn't even know Ched Evans was having sex with her, whatever the state of her knowledge about McDonald and what he was doing.

"She had to piece together some fairly fragmentary memories of events later the next morning, after she'd woken up and found that she'd wet the bed in the hotel, and long after this defendant had slipped away into the night through the fire escape door."

Evans denies rape and the trial, expected to last for two weeks, continues.