Football officials enjoy high status in the society whereby even a tiny change in their routine lifestyle becomes news in the media. Brendan Rodgers, Liverpool’s manager, is one such soccer personality who needs no introduction and when he was seen in the court during the proceedings of a case where his son was an accused, it became viral news in the whole world. Actually, every father is supposed to be with his son irrespective of the fact whether his son is guilty or not and looking at the prima facie evidences, his son looks to be an accused of sexually assaulting a 19 year old girl when she was unconscious. His son, Anton Rodgers, is not the only accused in the case; others who are facing the same charges along with him are his Brighton’s teammates: Lewis Dunk, George Barker, and Steve Cook. Obviously, all four accused are denying of committing such act which happened back in July 2011 in a motel room of the south-coast city of Brighton. The girl in question was apparently unconscious when these four players allegedly assaulted her sexually and took her pictures in most vulnerable positions.
The girl filed a police complaint when one of these accused threatened her to upload the pictures on Internet. Girl told the court how she found herself naked in a motel room which was near of Brendan Rodgers, she also told about how horrified it was when she saw her nude pictures in mobile phone along with four accused. She also recalled her conversation with Rodgers next morning where she had a verbal fight with Rodgers and asked him to delete her pictures, but he clearly refused to do so. She added to her statement, “I felt ashamed, embarrassed. I couldn’t believe it had happened.
“I started shaking Anton. I was saying ‘Why did you do this? I thought you were a nice guy’.
“I was angry. I told him to delete them. He said he was not going to delete them. He was not at all concerned.”
By that time, she was not aware that other accused were also having those pictures.
Prosecuting lawyer Richard Barton also added, “These were the actions of a group of arrogant young men labouring under the misguided belief that by reason of their privileged position they could with impunity take advantage of a young woman.”