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I'm not sure what to make of Day 1 of the Ben Stokes thing.

The first day of the trial of Ben Stokes & 2 other lads charged with affray did not make good reading.

The pre-trial puff from the Stokes camp was that he was defending two gay lads who were being mocked by the other two co-defendants. This was confirmed in Court.

However, evidence was also given which stated Stokes originally mocked the two gay lads by mimicking their mannerisms. Then, when the other two lads increased the tempo, Stokes is said to have attacked them both, suggesting they had gone too far.

Hard to know what to believe so far, but it's all rather sordid.

I believe the charges include "affray".

A prison sentence - possibly suspended? - must be amongst the options if Stokes is found guilty.

Alex Hales seems - so far - to have emerged with some credit, as he tried to cool the situation.

Worth noting that we have yet to hear from Stokes defence team so the evidence so far is one-sided, & we are not yet in a position to judge.

Here's the BBC News report on Day 1;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-45082248


(http://i.imgur.com/VsGEZbT.jpg) (https://imgur.com/VsGEZbT)

One mystery cleared up was the interview Sky Sports did with Ben Stokes immediately after England had beaten India at the weekend.

OK, it was a good victory, but Stokes seemed overly emotional, barely able to speak & seemingly near to tears.

With hindsight, perhaps the gravity of his situation was haunting him, sort of hero to zero thing.

The trial is expected to last until next week, so Stokes will be missing from the 2nd Test v India at Lords, which starts on Thursday.   

Here's a legal view of what "affray" might mean, & the consequences. (This was before the Trial).

http://www.keepcalmtalklaw.co.uk/affray-outside-off-stump-explaining-ben-stokes-charges-/

As expected, the comedians on Twitter had a field day;


Absolute scenes at Bristol Crown Court as Ian Botham turns up with Fishing Rod, Chicken and a bottle of Red



Day 1 of the Stokes trial and it’s claimed Stokes made fun of ‘camp doorman’. Not quite the angel standing up for gay rights that we thought eh?

17 years now, since we had the most famous sporting affray comviction.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/dec/15/football.martinwainwright

These are difficult trials for juries, with so many conflicting accounts and with alcohol often playing a role in not helping witnesses recall events accurately. The test for the jury is beyond all reasonable doubt.

Will be an interesting trial to follow for sure.

Whatever happens, this sort of thing can't be good for a player who should be making fortunes on the short format circuit.

Seems like Stokes was on a mission to provoke a fight with someone, anyone, that night. The testimony of the two gay lads will be interesting. From what I’ve read so far, I can’t see how he will be found not guilty (unless there are a couple of cricket fans on the jury who want to do him a favour).

100% will be found guilty based on going too far in the scrap, it’s the severity of the punishment that’s up for grabs.....

You can copy someones mannerisms without mocking them.   Don't we all do this at times in conversation? Sure this is a thing.  There is a big gap between that and picking up a bottle and a street sign.  I am interested in the gay men's view of the incident.  He looks to have gone too far to me, but the bar to be found guily is high. 

Will be intersting for sure.

Agree with that.

I think the Trial will turn based on what constitutes "self-defence", as things seemed to go from pop to bang pretty quickly.

As Tal noted, over-indulgence in alcohol can & often does lead to all sorts of unacceptable behaviour.   

Interestingly, pre-trial 16 potential jurors were asked if they had any interest in cricket or views on Stokes + or - that would affect their judgement

Not one professed to be a fan of the sport or to know who he was

i used to be a a cricket nut in the mid 90s but once everything went to sky i stopped following it

i follow most of the sports pages, but wouldnt recognise any of the england players if they were sat next to me in their kits. could name maybe 3 current players, stokes being one of them only due to him being in the papers for the wrong reasons

not surprised that a random sampling of 16 people had no clue who he was.

That's hard to believe, but here on blonde, where we have a knowledgeable collection of people interested in sport, there was a discussion about SPOTY nominee Jonathan Rae last year (Superbike World Champion '15, '16 & '17), & several members said they had never heard of him, which was equally hard to believe - but true, I guess.

So it is possible.

16 random people

average of 8 women so very unlikely to foloow cricket

average of 8 blokes. odds of 8 random men not following cricket?

i wouldnt  place it in the 'hard to believe' cat.

i'd wager that viewing figures for the ashes even  dont get near a million

Don't disagree with the thrust of that, but the Ashes tests were middle of the night UK time, & only available on BT Sport. So you can probably divide 1 milly by 10 & then some.

some quick googling found that channel 4 averaged around 1 million, sky around half a million [about the same as a re run for columbo on ITV3], and yes BT 100k.

The altercation with the bouncer....and the fight....all on CCTV and video, so not a lot of wriggle room.

Might need something a little stronger than Beefy's red wine.

I still hadn't heard of him and by tomorrow I won't have heard of him again

Well if he ends up in court charged with affray, you are cleared for jury duty.

Let's not be too hasty now; after all we've not yet heard what the co-defendants have been paid to say.

From the CCTV images, there doesn't look like a lot of self defence going on from Stokes.

Today's testimony from the bouncer was damning too. Unless the jury buy into some pretty desperate arguments/mitigation from the defence, there really only seems to be one likely verdict to my simple mind.

I don't think locking him up will achieve much, but a thousand hours of community service might bring a bit more meaning to his life outside of the game of cricket.

There is 4 minutes of CCTV and the first interactions with the gay men and bouncer here.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/ben-stokes-trial-cctv-footage-13046154 (https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/ben-stokes-trial-cctv-footage-13046154)

cliffs
Stokes does flick something at one of the men, possibly a cigarette butt (about 2:51), though there isn't an obvious reaction to it.
Stokes does seem to do a camp pose after the men have gone, though there isn't anything really obvious before that, though Hales seems to grab his face to stop him doing something about 15 seconds after the "cigarette butt" was flicked.  I'd say there isn't any obviously angry exchanges between Stokes and the gay men.
Stokes never looks to be angry up until right near the end where someone (probably today's bouncer witness) refuses to shake his hand.  He shakes somebody else's hand before that (probably another member of bar staff).

I watched the fight video before, and that seems much more damning.
 

This is an overview of what the affray charge means in this context/

http://www.keepcalmtalklaw.co.uk/affray-outside-off-stump-explaining-ben-stokes-charges-/ (http://www.keepcalmtalklaw.co.uk/affray-outside-off-stump-explaining-ben-stokes-charges-/)

Stoke’ initial police interview took 21 minutes. He answered no comment to all questions


.......he's been watching too many police documentaries  :D

No.

He will have been told to do that by his solicitor. That's pretty much defence 101 from any decent solicitor.

The police have to disclose any evidence they have to the defence before the interviews start, and these have to take place within the first 24hrs after arrest, which is a legal rule. There's no way they have all the CCTV footage etc and the defence solicitor knows this. Therefore, in order to stop Stokes saying something that can be contradicted by CCTV evidence/witnesses etc, solicitor will advise no comment at that time. Once all evidence has been disclosed, then Stokes would have probably been re-interviewed, and answered questions.

Ryan Hale (not to be confused with Alex Hales) has been acquitted, leaving just two defendants now.

Judging by the evidence, it's hard to see how Alex Hales was not also charged, it was alleged he stamped three times on the head of a guy who was already down and out.

Not been a good pre-lunch session for Stokes.

Pretty interesting this.

While here though, find it hard to imagine why any money is spent on a case like this. Ideally all parties would agree to a bit of community service and move on before it gets near a court - no idea if that's a possible outcome once a decision is made to prosecute. Just fail to see how the public interest is served at all by the process - probs missing something as per

"A couple of beers.... And 5 or 6 vodka & lemonades"

Vodka & lemonade?

Who'd have thought....

Always fascinating to find out these incidental details.

Maybe he was Schwepped away in the moment that evening.

Schweppes?

Just the tonic

Think Ben must be having a laugh here......(from this morning's cross-examination)


The CCTV shows Stokes, just before he leaves his failed attempt to get into Mbargo
“You were looking up, and talking down your nose at the doorman. You were angry, weren’t you?” asked the prosecutor.
“I think I might have been looking at the night sky,” said Stokes.

”Who were you talking to?”
I don’t know, God? said Stokes
“I’m sorry?” asked the prosecutor.
“I was talking to God.”

fml.....if ever there was a moment in this trail he should have been economical with the truth.

Closing speeches now happening.....and no sign of the gay couple and their "vital" evidence !?

Can you refuse to be a witness, if summoned by the court ?....and if so why in this case?

Very strange... ;carlocitrone;

They gave their side to The Sun a few months ago.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/two-men-who-ben-stokes-claims-to-have-been-defending-come-forward-to-tell-their-story/news-story/4d0d2c48bdda885989838526789920f8 (https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/two-men-who-ben-stokes-claims-to-have-been-defending-come-forward-to-tell-their-story/news-story/4d0d2c48bdda885989838526789920f8)

Of course the jury can't take that into account...

One of the pair was criticised by one of his "friends" on twitter a few days ago.  He was pretty grumpy that tehy had told their story to the press, but refused to act as witnesses.

Not out!

Yup, not guilty of affray, & that's that, the case has concluded.

Can or will the Cricket authorities take any action against him now if they so desire?

Hopefully the only action they will do is bring him back into the Test Squad for the next game. He missed the whole of the Ashes over this, that is punishment enough in my humble opinion.

Don't think they can bring him in for the next game, as the squad has already been announced. Well I suppose they could, but it feels unlikely. Be a bit unfair on those already selected.

On the first morning of the trial, Judge Peter Blair rejected a late attempt by the prosecution to add a charge of causing actual bodily harm to Stokes' indictment.

What a joke the CPS is.

I think you're right.....missing the Ashes will be deemed enough punishment .

Onus on the jury to prove he wasn't acting in self defence, and I'm sure he had the best legal team money could buy, but the video footage looked pretty damning and didn't portray him in a good light.

Oh come on, butter would not melt in his mouth.


(http://i.imgur.com/AucpYgn.jpg) (https://imgur.com/AucpYgn)

Just seen the footage.

He is a very lucky boy.......

the jury's route to verdict:



(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dkj9seqXsAA3_Ka.jpg:large)

Well I got that wrong - he has now been added to the squad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/45186732


However, Aggers (who is usually on the money) reports;

Stokes and Hales now face ECB independent disciplinary committee, likely to face charges of bringing the game into disrepute. Might take a few days, up to a week to convene.

I do not understand how on earth he was never charged with ABH as well/instead which was a stone-cold mortgage-job.

I kept thinking that myself why they hadn’t been called up to court but they were in the papers again today apprently they were told by the prosecution they “wouldn’t be needed” probably as it did I suit their narrative.

My understanding from the piece in today's Times is that they were not reliable witnesses; their versions of events didn't match either each other's or the evidence that was available on cctv.

“It was too much for me and we went to Quigleys takeaway for chicken burgers and cheesy chips."

 Surely this trial will be marked down as an example of  "cock up" to law students.

CPS  had 10 months to put together the case........ probable wrong charges, unreliable non show witnesses, one defendant released by the judge half way through, one person involved not charged or called as witness......all not guilty.

Sure if that was any of us in the place of Stokes we wouldn't be walking away with a not guilty. Unbeleivable affray was the only charge

The story that just keep giving......

Stokes plays in tomorrow's third Test, at the expense of Edgbaston Man of the Match Sam Curran.

 

Stokes & Hales charged by the ECB with "bringing the game into disrepute".


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/45561380