TV presenter Charlie Webster, a patron for League Championship side Sheffield United’s Community Foundation, said that she feels so strongly about convicted rapist and former Sheffield player Ched Evans not being allowed to play football again that she has said that she "will resign from her role as patron if the club lets him come back," according to Radhika Sanghani of the London TELEGRAPH. Webster said, “Our club’s footballers are heroes in that moment on the pitch when they score a goal. I don’t want to stand by when our next generation cheers on a convicted rapist as a hero." Evans, 25, "has been released from prison more than two years into a five-year sentence he is serving for raping a 19-year-old woman, who was too drunk to consent." He "has always maintained that his victim consented to having sex." The Criminal Cases Review Commission "has now said it will fast-track his claim that his conviction should be quashed as a miscarriage of justice." The fact that his former club could ask him back to play, "has already sparked a petition of more than 150,000 signatures calling for the club to not reinstate him." Webster, 31, thinks that "Sheffield United needs to listen" to the people. Webster: “I have heard a lot of people say they won’t be taking their kids to the game. The club needs to listen to those that are voicing their opinion and have signed the petition." Webster is worried that parents "will either stop taking their children to games, or that those young supporters will be influenced by Evans." Webster: "I just think it’s a really bad message to send out to our community and our next generation" (TELEGRAPH, 10/21).
