YP Letters (Jan 22): The Ched Evans case. Are rapists equal before the law?

From: John Turley, Dronfield Woodhouse, Derbyshire.

ONE of the major issues in the Ched Evans case appears to have been caused by the insistence by various pressure groups in recent years that all rapes should be treated as being the same, regardless of the circumstances.

Most reasonable-minded people would however agree that the situation where a young woman agrees to go back to a footballer’s hotel room in the early hours of the morning is not the same as someone being attacked at knife point on the way home, and if Ched Evans had been convicted of the latter, there would be very few if any, even suggesting that he be ever allowed to play professional football again. Prominent public figures including Kenneth Clarke, when he was Justice Secretary, and more recently Judy Finnegan, have been pilloried in the media for daring to suggest that some rapes might be less serious than others.

However, unless the conviction is overturned at appeal, there appears to be little prospect of Ched Evans being allowed to play professional football again.

Turn tables on callers

From: Mike Smith, Birkby, Huddersfield.

REFERRING to the letter (The Yorkshire Post, January 16), we, too, have received a phone call from a number with 12 zeros. I can, however, pass on a piece of advice I was given and which seems to have worked reasonably well for us.

In the case of silent calls, those with unrecognisable numbers and especially international numbers or other persistent nuisance callers, the secret is to immediately press the hash button six or seven times in quick succession. That apparently fouls up the callers’ phone systems.

Having now followed that advice for several months, all I can say is our nuisance calls have dropped dramatically.

The only ones to be cautious with are “number withheld” because those can be from friends or people you know who prefer to be ex-directory.

The same source also tells me that silent calls are invariably from call centres checking on the best times to catch you in.

If you pick the phone up, that information is then logged and sold to sales centres.

From: Ross Taggart, Eaglescliffe, Stockton-on-Tees.

YOUR correspondent Mr Eastwood (The Yorkshire Post, January 12) should consider himself fortunate that the participants in the tediously and loudly recounted conversations, to which he is an unwilling listener, are merely in a state of amity... “so she like and I like”.

In this part of the world such participants in conversation appear to be in a state of perpetual motion... “so she went and I went, so she turned round and went”. I find mystifying exactly how all this movement is compatible with holding a conversation. Perhaps one of your readers could explain how it is done?

Images of substance

From: Stuart Clark, Garforth.

YOUR Editorial relating the death of Ethel Lang (The Yorkshire Post, January 17) to the appearance of the still silent Beagle 2 raises another interesting comparison.

When she was born in 1900 photography had come into being 60 years earlier, capturing the life of Queen Victoria, and the splendour of her Diamond Jubilee, even recorded on movie film. The Lang family group studio photograph taken 90 years ago is an endearing part of the story of her life.

Today, millions of family images produced electronically are rarely printed on substance, or even stored before deleting.

If stored electronically, what assurance do we have that these images, or even compatible equipment, would stand the passage of time enabling retrieval in another 100 years time?

A bad joke on war crimes

From: Martin D Stern, Hanover Gardens, Salford.

i NOTICE that the Palestinians will formally join the International Criminal Court, in order to bring charges against Israel for war crimes, on April 1, commonly called All Fools’ Day.

In view of their own behaviour, in siting its rocket launchers in schools, mosques and apartment blocks when targeting Israel’s civilian population, both deliberate contraventions of the Geneva Convention, is this choice of date not highly significant?

Running scared

From: Les Arnott, Sheffield.

DAVID Cameron insisting that he will only debate against people whom he can beat such as Ed Miliband is laughable. Running scared of Nigel Farage, huh? Could be shown up, huh? Not a democrat, huh? Saw how a slightly off form Nigel Farage could easily beat Nick Clegg at his TV best, huh?

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

GIVEN the absence of constructive exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions, why should the country expect any better in any TV election debates? What about politicians going out and meeting real people rather than stooges wheeled out by their respective parties?