Leading criminal barristers are concerned that victims of sexual attacks may be “scared off” from coming forward by the “over-reaction” of some women’s rights campaigners following the Ched Evans rape verdict.

Some commentators have suggested that a decision to allow the complainant’s sexual history to be used by Evans’s defence has created a “rapists’ charter” and set the law back three decades.

But the chair and vice-chair of the Criminal Bar Association told the Guardian that such language was counterproductive and could undermine confidence in the rules designed to protect victims of sex crimes.

Francis FitzGibbon QC, chair of the association, said: “There’s been a huge over-reaction to what this case means. The answer is not very much. The thing that troubles me is people saying it sets the law back 30 years and it’s a rapists’ charter. That is what is going to make people think they daren’t report what’s happened to them. Those cries of anguish are a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Evans, a Welsh football international, was convicted in 2011 of raping a 19-year-old waitress and spent two-and-a-half years in prison. But following a well-funded campaign that included a £50,000 reward for information leading to his acquittal, his case was quashed on appeal and a retrial ordered.

The new evidence came from two former sexual partners of the complainant, who testified that her sexual behaviour with them – and the language she used – was similar to Evans’s account of how she had acted with him during consensual sex.

At the heart of the appeal was section 41 of the of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which prevents a complainant’s sexual history being used in court apart from in exceptional circumstances.

Following Evans’s acquittal on Friday, the women’s rights activist Julie Bindel claimed: “The Ched Evans acquittal, and the way his defence was run, has led to a rapists’ charter.”

Vera Baird, a former solicitor general for England and Wales and now a police and crime commissioner, said the decision had put the law back 30 years.

FitzGibbon said: “The law on section 41 makes it very, very difficult to introduce evidence of someone’s previous sexual behaviour unless the judge is persuaded it would result in an unfair verdict if it wasn’t put.



“There’s an understandable emotional reaction when something like this happens. When you step back and look at what it actually does it’s an over-reaction.”

On Baird’s stance, FitzGibbon added: “Vera has for many years been a redoubtable champion of women’s rights and I’m sure she genuinely believes this a backward step for the rights of women in the criminal justice system and in society. But I happen to disagree with her. I don’t think it is. I think the language that she and others have used is counterproductive and is probably more likely to scare people off than the law itself.”

Angela Rafferty QC, vice-chair of the Criminal Bar Association and an expert on the law around sexual offences, said: “Sometimes cases involving celebrities can be a blessing in highlighting important issues.”

But she added: “It is a disservice to victims of sex offenders to misinform them that the Ched Evans case has put the law back 30 years or has made it a rapists’ charter. That case has not changed the law. The law forbids questions about the previous sexual behaviour of a complainant in sexual offence cases, except in highly unusual circumstances where the trial would be unfair, and a wrongful conviction might result, if the evidence was not given.

“The court of appeal thought Evans’s was such a case. Cases like Evans’s will remain wholly exceptional. There is no relaxation of the rule against this type of questioning.”