The BBC has apologised after presenter Michael Buerk criticised the victim in the Ched Evans rape case for being drunk.
In a trailer for Radio 4 discussion show Moral Maze on the rehabilitation of criminals, Buerk said neither footballer Evans nor the woman he attacked emerged “with any credit” because she was so intoxicated “she could barely stand”.
His comments have incensed victims’ rights campaigners, who described the trailer as “damaging” and “deeply offensive”.
The Welsh footballer Evans was released from prison on Friday having served half of a five-year sentence for raping a woman in a hotel room. Another defendant, Port Vale defender Clayton McDonald, was cleared.
Sheffield United dismissed reports that the club has offered him a new contract.
A Radio 4 spokesman said: “There was no intention to suggest that the victim was in any way at fault, and we apologise if the way this live trail was phrased suggested this.
“Tonight’s [Wednesday’s] Moral Maze will ask whether a convicted rapist who maintains his innocence should be entitled to get his job back.”
The BBC said the programme will be broadcast at 8pm as planned. The discussion will focus on “whether the need for forgiveness and rehabilitation trump the need for continuing disgrace and the need to make an example of someone who for many should be a role model”, the BBC said.
In his trail for Moral Maze, Buerk said: “Nobody comes out of the Ched Evans rape case with any credit – not the victim who’d drunk so much she could barely stand, nor the two footballers who had sex with her in the most sordid of circumstances.”
Katie Russell, for Rape Crisis England and Wales, described Buerk’s comments as “dreadful”.
She said: “While Michael Buerk and the Moral Maze are both known for being provocative, it is difficult to stress just how inappropriate and potentially damaging this morning’s live trail from the presenter for his programme was.
“To infer that being drunk is in any way ‘morally’ comparable to committing the serious and violent crime of rape is deeply offensive and will undoubtedly have caused considerable distress to the huge numbers of survivors of sexual violence who will inevitably have been listening.
“Let us not forget that there is a rape survivor at the heart of this story, who is currently living with the devastating and potentially life-long impact not only of having been sexually violated but of the terrible abuse she has subsequently suffered in the public domain.
“It is partly because of the kind of shaming, victim-blaming attitudes voiced by Michael Buerk this morning that currently only 15% of all those who are raped choose to report to the police.”
A statement from Evans on his future is anticipated in the near future.
Evans’s girlfriend, Natasha Massey, has led a campaign to have his conviction overturned, while people on the internet have outed the victim, whom Buerk described as “hiding like an IRA informer”.
Others have said Evans – who maintains his innocence – should not be allowed to resume a playing career.
TV presenter and Sheffield United patron Charlie Webster, who revealed in an interview earlier this year that she was sexually assaulted as a teenager, said she will quit her role with the club if they re-sign Evans.
On Tuesday, former Downing Street spin doctor Alastair Campbell told BBC3’s Free Speech he supported the idea of criminals being reintegrated back into society.
He said: “I think we’ve got to be very careful to say that somebody who has committed a crime, and has then served their sentence, and then should never, ever, ever be accepted back as a, if you like, a good member of society again.”
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