[J. Martin Stafford]

My reason for registering on this website was to bring to the attention of the club’s fans my recently published book on Ched Evans. I thank the managers of the website for granting me permission to do this.

Before I proceed to my main purpose, I should like to say how sorry I am to learn of the acute crisis facing the Club in the wake of the resignation of its Chairman, Dave Allen. I hope that new investors will be found and that these serious problems will be satisfactorily resolved.

When it was announced on 20 June that Chesterfield FC had signed Ched Evans, I immediately wrote to Dave Allen to applaud this courageous decision and received a prompt reply thanking me for my interest and support. My respect for Dave Allen and for the club is stated in my book. I have taken a keen interest in Ched’s fate since shortly before his release from prison in October 2014.

Early in 2015 I resolved to publish a short book as soon as his conviction was overturned, though I would have published it even if his appeal had had a less favourable outcome. It took two years from the time of his release to secure justice for Ched, so my book was long in gestation. It is about 22,000 words on [viii] + 62 A5 pages in laminated card covers. The price is £5.00. For this I will post it to any UK address if it is bought directly from me. For ordering details and payment methods, please see my website: www.ismeron.co.uk . The book is also available (though at a higher total price) on AMAZON and eBay. Appended below are details of the book and its author.

CHED EVANS
VINDICATED[/font]
Essays criticising his Prosecution and Conviction, and
deprecating the Odious Treatment to which he was subjected
after leaving Prison

J. Martin Stafford

[font="Times New Roman"]In April 2012, Sheffield United and Welsh International footballer Ched Evans was wrongly convicted of rape on the most tenuous and controversial evidence. He served 2½ years of a five year sentence. He consistently maintained his innocence. After four long years, his conviction was overturned, and at a retrial in October 2016 he was speedily and unanimously acquitted. This book argues that:

• He should not have been put on trial in the first instance.
• He should never have been convicted.
• In any event, on his release from prison, he should have been allowed promptly to resume his career.

Among other things, the author trenchantly criticises the Crown Prosecution Service, the first jury, and the Court of Appeal for their roles in this long-running miscarriage of justice; castigates the media for promoting a hostile climate of near-hysteria; reproves politicians for their unprincipled attitude, and Sheffield United FC for their shameful failure to honour their oft-repeated promise of reinstatement.

Martin Stafford was born in Hyde in 1948 and educated at Stockport Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. As a teenager, he fought against a local railway closure (Romiley to Macclesfield) and became an early campaigner for homosexual equality. Since the mid-1970s he has contributed more than a dozen articles to learned journals, mainly on the history of ethics and philosophical aspects of human sexuality. He prepared an annotated collection of the documents which constitute the Mandeville controversy of the 1720s: Private Vices, Publick Benefits? – the Contemporary Reception of Bernard Mandeville (Ismeron, 1997). In 2002 he was invited to serve on the Advisory Board of an encyclopaedia: Sex from Plato to Paglia, 2 vols. edited by Alan Soble (Greenwood Press, 2006). To this he contributed five entries.
ISBN 978-0-9512594-7-4

[CFC91]

No doubting it will be a very interesting read, Martin as the whole case regardless of opinions is certainly 'differen't to say the least.

This will go down well/like a lead a balloon with some on here as i'm sure you can imagine, the fans are still split on the whole Ched saga as you would probably be able to ascertain by reading through the pages of arguments on here!

[calvin plummers socks]

 J. Martin Stafford, on 28 November 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

My reason for registering on this website was to bring to the attention of the club’s fans my recently published book on Ched Evans. I thank the managers of the website for granting me permission to do this.

Before I proceed to my main purpose, I should like to say how sorry I am to learn of the acute crisis facing the Club in the wake of the resignation of its Chairman, Dave Allen. I hope that new investors will be found and that these serious problems will be satisfactorily resolved.

When it was announced on 20 June that Chesterfield FC had signed Ched Evans, I immediately wrote to Dave Allen to applaud this courageous decision and received a prompt reply thanking me for my interest and support. My respect for Dave Allen and for the club is stated in my book. I have taken a keen interest in Ched’s fate since shortly before his release from prison in October 2014.

Early in 2015 I resolved to publish a short book as soon as his conviction was overturned, though I would have published it even if his appeal had had a less favourable outcome. It took two years from the time of his release to secure justice for Ched, so my book was long in gestation. It is about 22,000 words on [viii] + 62 A5 pages in laminated card covers. The price is £5.00. For this I will post it to any UK address if it is bought directly from me. For ordering details and payment methods, please see my website: www.ismeron.co.uk . The book is also available (though at a higher total price) on AMAZON and eBay. Appended below are details of the book and its author.

CHED EVANS
VINDICATED[/font]
Essays criticising his Prosecution and Conviction, and
deprecating the Odious Treatment to which he was subjected
after leaving Prison

J. Martin Stafford

[font="Times New Roman"]In April 2012, Sheffield United and Welsh International footballer Ched Evans was wrongly convicted of rape on the most tenuous and controversial evidence. He served 2½ years of a five year sentence. He consistently maintained his innocence. After four long years, his conviction was overturned, and at a retrial in October 2016 he was speedily and unanimously acquitted. This book argues that:

• He should not have been put on trial in the first instance.
• He should never have been convicted.
• In any event, on his release from prison, he should have been allowed promptly to resume his career.

Among other things, the author trenchantly criticises the Crown Prosecution Service, the first jury, and the Court of Appeal for their roles in this long-running miscarriage of justice; castigates the media for promoting a hostile climate of near-hysteria; reproves politicians for their unprincipled attitude, and Sheffield United FC for their shameful failure to honour their oft-repeated promise of reinstatement.

Martin Stafford was born in Hyde in 1948 and educated at Stockport Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. As a teenager, he fought against a local railway closure (Romiley to Macclesfield) and became an early campaigner for homosexual equality. Since the mid-1970s he has contributed more than a dozen articles to learned journals, mainly on the history of ethics and philosophical aspects of human sexuality. He prepared an annotated collection of the documents which constitute the Mandeville controversy of the 1720s: Private Vices, Publick Benefits? – the Contemporary Reception of Bernard Mandeville (Ismeron, 1997). In 2002 he was invited to serve on the Advisory Board of an encyclopaedia: Sex from Plato to Paglia, 2 vols. edited by Alan Soble (Greenwood Press, 2006). To this he contributed five entries.
ISBN 978-0-9512594-7-4

I'll send you some info

[DIFH]

 CFC91, on 28 November 2016 - 09:02 AM, said:

No doubting it will be a very interesting read, Martin as the whole case regardless of opinions is certainly 'differen't to say the least.

This will go down well/like a lead a balloon with some on here as i'm sure you can imagine, the fans are still split on the whole Ched saga as you would probably be able to ascertain by reading through the pages of arguments on here!

Hope you've promoted it on the Sheffield United website.

[Siberian Spireite]

This is my first post on this forum since 20th June.

CPS- I think your inbox may be full, unless you have disabled receiving of Private Messages?

Cheers

[dim view]

 J. Martin Stafford, on 28 November 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

My reason for registering on this website was to bring to the attention of the club’s fans my recently published book on Ched Evans.

Among other things, the author trenchantly criticises the Crown Prosecution Service, the first jury, and the Court of Appeal for their roles in this long-running miscarriage of justice;

Thanks. It's on my xmas list.

I found the whole thing fascinating. Off at a tangent, how will your published conclusions and criticisms affect future civil court cases against all those parties who are at fault? Are you yourself fearful of being sued if any of the actions fail? Will you be adding some more chapters when all those actions are completed?

[Misnomer]

 J. Martin Stafford, on 28 November 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

My reason for registering on this website was to bring to the attention of the club’s fans my recently published book on Ched Evans. I thank the managers of the website for granting me permission to do this.

Before I proceed to my main purpose, I should like to say how sorry I am to learn of the acute crisis facing the Club in the wake of the resignation of its Chairman, Dave Allen. I hope that new investors will be found and that these serious problems will be satisfactorily resolved.

When it was announced on 20 June that Chesterfield FC had signed Ched Evans, I immediately wrote to Dave Allen to applaud this courageous decision and received a prompt reply thanking me for my interest and support. My respect for Dave Allen and for the club is stated in my book. I have taken a keen interest in Ched’s fate since shortly before his release from prison in October 2014.

Early in 2015 I resolved to publish a short book as soon as his conviction was overturned, though I would have published it even if his appeal had had a less favourable outcome. It took two years from the time of his release to secure justice for Ched, so my book was long in gestation. It is about 22,000 words on [viii] + 62 A5 pages in laminated card covers. The price is £5.00. For this I will post it to any UK address if it is bought directly from me. For ordering details and payment methods, please see my website: www.ismeron.co.uk . The book is also available (though at a higher total price) on AMAZON and eBay. Appended below are details of the book and its author.

CHED EVANS
VINDICATED[/font]
Essays criticising his Prosecution and Conviction, and
deprecating the Odious Treatment to which he was subjected
after leaving Prison

J. Martin Stafford

[font="Times New Roman"]In April 2012, Sheffield United and Welsh International footballer Ched Evans was wrongly convicted of rape on the most tenuous and controversial evidence. He served 2½ years of a five year sentence. He consistently maintained his innocence. After four long years, his conviction was overturned, and at a retrial in October 2016 he was speedily and unanimously acquitted. This book argues that:

• He should not have been put on trial in the first instance.
• He should never have been convicted.
• In any event, on his release from prison, he should have been allowed promptly to resume his career.

Among other things, the author trenchantly criticises the Crown Prosecution Service, the first jury, and the Court of Appeal for their roles in this long-running miscarriage of justice; castigates the media for promoting a hostile climate of near-hysteria; reproves politicians for their unprincipled attitude, and Sheffield United FC for their shameful failure to honour their oft-repeated promise of reinstatement.

Martin Stafford was born in Hyde in 1948 and educated at Stockport Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. As a teenager, he fought against a local railway closure (Romiley to Macclesfield) and became an early campaigner for homosexual equality. Since the mid-1970s he has contributed more than a dozen articles to learned journals, mainly on the history of ethics and philosophical aspects of human sexuality. He prepared an annotated collection of the documents which constitute the Mandeville controversy of the 1720s: Private Vices, Publick Benefits? – the Contemporary Reception of Bernard Mandeville (Ismeron, 1997). In 2002 he was invited to serve on the Advisory Board of an encyclopaedia: Sex from Plato to Paglia, 2 vols. edited by Alan Soble (Greenwood Press, 2006). To this he contributed five entries.
ISBN 978-0-9512594-7-4

What is the victim's (or, whatever she is referred to now) contribution?

[Spireite-Karl]

 Misnomer, on 28 November 2016 - 04:05 PM, said:

What is the victim's (or, whatever she is referred to now) contribution?

Page 3

[Sabreman]

 calvin plummers socks, on 28 November 2016 - 09:45 AM, said:

I'll send you some info

Some info in what ?

[newbold ken]

 calvin plummers socks, on 28 November 2016 - 09:45 AM, said:

I'll send you some info

Time to move on Bruv-he was found not guilty .

[Stockholm Spireite]

 J. Martin Stafford, on 28 November 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

My reason for registering on this website was to bring to the attention of the club’s fans my recently published book on Ched Evans. I thank the managers of the website for granting me permission to do this.

Before I proceed to my main purpose, I should like to say how sorry I am to learn of the acute crisis facing the Club in the wake of the resignation of its Chairman, Dave Allen. I hope that new investors will be found and that these serious problems will be satisfactorily resolved.

When it was announced on 20 June that Chesterfield FC had signed Ched Evans, I immediately wrote to Dave Allen to applaud this courageous decision and received a prompt reply thanking me for my interest and support. My respect for Dave Allen and for the club is stated in my book. I have taken a keen interest in Ched’s fate since shortly before his release from prison in October 2014.

Early in 2015 I resolved to publish a short book as soon as his conviction was overturned, though I would have published it even if his appeal had had a less favourable outcome. It took two years from the time of his release to secure justice for Ched, so my book was long in gestation. It is about 22,000 words on [viii] + 62 A5 pages in laminated card covers. The price is £5.00. For this I will post it to any UK address if it is bought directly from me. For ordering details and payment methods, please see my website: www.ismeron.co.uk . The book is also available (though at a higher total price) on AMAZON and eBay. Appended below are details of the book and its author.

CHED EVANS
VINDICATED[/font]
Essays criticising his Prosecution and Conviction, and
deprecating the Odious Treatment to which he was subjected
after leaving Prison

J. Martin Stafford

[font="Times New Roman"]In April 2012, Sheffield United and Welsh International footballer Ched Evans was wrongly convicted of rape on the most tenuous and controversial evidence. He served 2½ years of a five year sentence. He consistently maintained his innocence. After four long years, his conviction was overturned, and at a retrial in October 2016 he was speedily and unanimously acquitted. This book argues that:

• He should not have been put on trial in the first instance.
• He should never have been convicted.
• In any event, on his release from prison, he should have been allowed promptly to resume his career.

Among other things, the author trenchantly criticises the Crown Prosecution Service, the first jury, and the Court of Appeal for their roles in this long-running miscarriage of justice; castigates the media for promoting a hostile climate of near-hysteria; reproves politicians for their unprincipled attitude, and Sheffield United FC for their shameful failure to honour their oft-repeated promise of reinstatement.

Martin Stafford was born in Hyde in 1948 and educated at Stockport Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. As a teenager, he fought against a local railway closure (Romiley to Macclesfield) and became an early campaigner for homosexual equality. Since the mid-1970s he has contributed more than a dozen articles to learned journals, mainly on the history of ethics and philosophical aspects of human sexuality. He prepared an annotated collection of the documents which constitute the Mandeville controversy of the 1720s: Private Vices, Publick Benefits? – the Contemporary Reception of Bernard Mandeville (Ismeron, 1997). In 2002 he was invited to serve on the Advisory Board of an encyclopaedia: Sex from Plato to Paglia, 2 vols. edited by Alan Soble (Greenwood Press, 2006). To this he contributed five entries.
ISBN 978-0-9512594-7-4

SPAM!

[BigBlue]

 Sabreman, on 28 November 2016 - 05:01 PM, said:

Some info in what ?

Sh I t sturring probably. You buying a copy Calvin Plummers socks? As he's your hero. 👍

[moondog]

Whilst I don't think we can argue against allowing someone plugging a book about one of our players that is in the public domain as being for sale as fans might be interested as we've seen, I have been asked to point out that the book is not endorsed by Ched's family hence why the club declined the request from the author to sell it in the club shop.

[dalekpete]

Not a comment on any aspect of the case just my thoughts on the book.

Anyone who reads this is likely to be disappointed. It is written by an academic who specialises in arcane philosophy so don't expect any deep exploration of the actual case.

The basis of the book is that the CPS, the Jury and the wider football world all were wrong in their treatment of Ched Evans. However there are no references to case-law or the background to the proceedings rather the footnotes and bibliography cites eighteenth and nineteenth century works of philosophy as well as Chairman Mao. One chapter is written in the form of poetry. The citation style is not something I have seen in recent academic papers. My view is that I found the whole work somewhat pretentious and lacking any insight.

[Goku]

yeah sounds garbage

[Stand Road Man]

Going straight out to buy one ...... not.

[J. Martin Stafford]

 moondog, on 29 November 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

Whilst I don't think we can argue against allowing someone plugging a book about one of our players that is in the public domain as being for sale as fans might be interested as we've seen, I have been asked to point out that the book is not endorsed by Ched's family hence why the club declined the request from the author to sell it in the club shop.

I never REQUESTED that the book be sold in the Club Shop, though I should be pleased if it was. When I wrote to Dave Allen in June to applaud the decision to sign Ched, he OFFERED to put it on sale. This offer was revoked by another official of the club a week before the book was due to be published. I do not wish to make this an issue, as I am resolved to do nothing which would embarrass the club, whose decision to sign Ched I profoundly respect. I do, however, wish to set the record straight.

While the book may not have been endorsed by Ched or by his family, I believe there is nothing in it whatsoever which is disconsonant with what Ched or his family maintained throughout his ordeal. I have never had any contact with Ched, but in the months after his release from prison I communicated from time to time with Karl Massey, with whom I had lunch on 6 November 2014. At all times our comminications wre courteous and cordial. In October / November 2014 - when there was still a chance that SUFC would take Ched back - I wrote FIVE letters to SUFC encouraging them to do what was right and stand by Ched in his time of dire need. In this I was actively encouraged by Karl Massey. Moreover, Karl Massey was informed in the summer of last year (2015) that I intended to publish such a book. He has never tried to discourage me. He also knew that the book would be dedicated to Ched, to his daughter Natasha and to himself. None of these three people has ever acted to repudiate this dedication or to challenge anything that is in the book. Karl Massey was given full access to the text many months before it was published. So if there was anything in it that they did not like, they had ample opportunity to make their views known to me. Their views would most certainly have been respected, and I should probably have acted in accordance with their wishes

Late in October (I think it was Friday 21) I spoke to Karl Massey, informing him of my intention to call on the Bishop of Manchester and Tony Lloyd (Police and Crime Commissioner) to aplogise for their conduct in January 2015. At this time, there was a prospect that Ched might be signed by Oldham Athletic and both of them made very public statements reviling Ched as being unrepentant and therefore unfit to be a footballer. I challenged these unwarrented allegations at the time, and more recently (October 2016) called on the Bishop and Tony Lloyd to apologise for making them. I did this with the approval and encouragement of Karl Massey. Not surprisingly, neither the Bishop nor Tony Lloyd responded.

I cannot conceive of any reason why Karl Massey or Ched Evans should dislike my book, which is passionately supportive of their cause and eloquent in pleading it. If they do not like it, I now urge them to state plainly what it is that they object to.

J. Martin Stafford

[DMU Blue]

I can't believe anyone is this into it

[spireitetoo]

I find it hard to believe someone could write a book without actually speaking to ched or the complainant.

This post has been edited by spireitetoo: 29 November 2016 - 06:21 PM

[J. Martin Stafford]

 dalekpete, on 29 November 2016 - 02:57 PM, said:

Not a comment on any aspect of the case just my thoughts on the book.

Anyone who reads this is likely to be disappointed. It is written by an academic who specialises in arcane philosophy so don't expect any deep exploration of the actual case.

The basis of the book is that the CPS, the Jury and the wider football world all were wrong in their treatment of Ched Evans. However there are no references to case-law or the background to the proceedings rather the footnotes and bibliography cites eighteenth and nineteenth century works of philosophy as well as Chairman Mao. One chapter is written in the form of poetry. The citation style is not something I have seen in recent academic papers. My view is that I found the whole work somewhat pretentious and lacking any insight.

The posting by Peter Whiteley is the first to be made by someone who has actually read the book. Or at least, he has read the Bibliography on its last two pages and the blurb – the description of the book on its back cover. His paraphrase of this is a fair one, apart from his assertion that I blame ‘the wider football world’ for its maltreatment of Ched. The only part of the football community to which I impute any blame at all is his old club, Sheffield United.

Mr Whiteley claims that there is no deep exploration of the actual case. I am not sure what is meant by this alleged deficiency. Without exploring the gory details of the alleged offence, I give an account of the circumstances in which Ched was put on trial. This aspect of the case is also discussed in the six page contribution by Stuart Gilhooly, the solicitor to the Irish PFA.

Mr Whiteley asserts that I am pre-occupied by arcane 18th and 19th century philosophers. It is true that my intellectually roots are firmly in the soil of the Scottish enlightenment (David Hume and Adam Smith) and the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, born in Derby in 1820. Far from being arcane, these thinkers were intellectual giants of their own time. Moreover, the reputations of two of them have never been eclipsed. I therefore will not apologise for referring occasionally to their writings.

My allusion to Chairman Mao is an almost jocular aside. The humour seems to have eluded Mr Whiteley, which prompts me to wonder how carefully he has read the book. In the mid-1960s there was widely circulated a little book called Quotations from Chairman Mao. One of the aphorisms in it (the only one I remember) is ‘No investigation, no right to speak!’ In my criticism of the Bishop of Manchester and Tony Lloyd, the Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner, I cite this singularly apposite quotation. In January 2015, both these men – from the highly privileged position of the offices they hold – launched an unwarranted and profoundly damaging attack on Ched as an ‘unrepentant rapist’. While it was true at the time that his conviction had yet to be overturned, it was abundantly clear to anyone with any sense that it was – and always had been – extremely unsafe. Moreover, since Ched had expressed very publicly his regret for the way he had behaved, it was wantonly reckless to claim that he was unrepentant. Had the Bishop and Tony Lloyd taken a little trouble to make the enquiries that I made, they might not have calumniated Ched in the way that they did. Or maybe they would. After all, why should unwelcome truths be allowed to undermine the hallowed ground of ‘political correctness’?

I cannot know how many of my book’s readers will be pleased or disappointed. I have had one email from someone associated with the club who seems to like it. At the moment, my work is certainly the most comprehensive discussion of the issues surrounding the case. It is also beyond dispute that I treat Ched more fairly than the malign scribblings which once filled the pages of the tabloid press.