Footballers “raped drunk teenager”

Wales and Sheffield United striker Ched Evans, 23, and Clayton McDonald, also 23, deny the attack which allegedly took place at a Premier Inn near Rhyl, North Wales, during a bank holiday last May.

John Philpotts, prosecuting, told Caernarfon Crown Court that Port Vale defender McDonald, of Marys Gate, Crewe, Cheshire, and Evans, of Ashtree Gardens, Millhouse Green, Penistone, South Yorkshire, had admitted having sex with the complainant.

But he said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was too drunk to consent to sexual intercourse.

Mr Philpotts said that while the attack happened Jack Higgins, an “associate” of the footballers, and Ryan Roberts, Evans’s brother, had watched through a window.

Video recordings found on Mr Higgins’s phone showed that he had been filming or trying to film the incident.

Evans, originally from St Asaph, is a graduate of the Manchester City youth academy and scored 10 goals in 28 league appearances while on loan to Norwich City in 2007.

The following year he scored in his debut game for Wales and later joined League One side Sheffield United in a £3 million deal.

Liverpool-born McDonald, who was also part of the Manchester City youth scheme, has played for Macclesfield Town, Chesterfield and Walsall.

He joined Port Vale at the end of last season.

The court heard that the pair had spent the night of Sunday May 29 socialising with friends in Rhyl.

In the early hours of Monday May 30, 6ft 6in McDonald got into a taxi which the complainant had flagged down.

He then took the woman, whom he had seen fall over in a kebab shop, to the Premier Inn hotel as he called someone on his phone to say he had “got a girl”.

The complainant had been drinking wine, vodka with lemonade and had also had a sambuca shot.

A receptionist at the hotel described the woman, who was 19 at the time and worked in a restaurant, as “extremely drunk” and said she was “stumbling” and “slurring” and occasionally grabbing hold of McDonald to steady herself.

Shortly after McDonald and the complainant arrived at the hotel, Evans came in to the reception and asked for the keys to a room.

Two men, who the prosecution say were Jack Higgins and Ryan Roberts, waited outside.

Mr Philpotts said: “Ched Evans had booked that room with the main or sole purpose of procuring a girl or girls that night.

“He and Clayton McDonald were on the lookout for any girl who was a suitable target and the claimant had literally stumbled across their path.”