Wales footballer is jailed for raping teenager 'too drunk to consent'

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A footballer who raped a teenager who was "too drunk to consent" to sex, while two of his friends tried to film the attack on a mobile phone, was jailed for five years yesterday.

Ched Evans, the Sheffield United striker and Wales international, was convicted of raping the girl, then 19, at a Premier Inn near Rhyl, north Wales, after a night out last May.

His co-defendant, the Port Vale defender Clayton McDonald, from Crewe, was acquitted of the same charge at Caernarfon Crown Court.

Both men admitted having sex with the woman but the prosecution said she was too drunk to consent. The victim told police she had no memory of the incident and believed her drink may have been spiked.

Jailing Evans, Judge Merfyn Hughes, QC, said: "The complainant was extremely intoxicate. CCTV footage shows, in my view, the extent of her intoxication when she stumbled into your friend. As the jury have found, she was in no condition to have sexual intercourse. When you arrived at the hotel, you must have realised that." He told Evans he might have been used to receiving attention from women due to his footballing success but this case was "very different".