They haven't put Mason Greenwood in front of a camera and had him do an extended apology, no. Again, I'm not even saying this was the right course of action, but there are innumerable potential reasons for this.
My issue is that, based I'm sure on the initial evidence and in many cases with genuine anger, people are not only not allowing the possibility for different interpretations of the evidence to have become available, but also consequently seeing everything (from the investigation and its outcome to PR strategies) through this lens of the most cynical cover-up. Hence I'm curious, what do you, and others taking a similar line, perceive to be unimpeachable evidence that he carried out the physical assault initially alleged? Because that's different to 'could he still hypothetically have committed the offence' despite new evidence emerging to indicate the contrary that we're not privy to. My position since the investigation was concluded was that indeed it could be a whitewash -and I certainly have no great faith in the moral integrity of the club - but that given (a) the severity of the initial evidence and of the alleged crime (b) the reference to both a witness withdrawing and to new evidence emerging, and (c) two investigations deeming the evidence for his guilt to be insuffiicent and/or cancelled out by counter-evidence of a nature not made clear to us, I have to take a 'not proven' line and await any new developments or statements.
I don't believe in recourse to authority or anything, plus I'm neither a lawyer nor a psychologist specializing in these issues ( which puts me in a weak position in approaching aspects of this case), but I have worked in social services with victims of abuse and with people who were judged to have been falsely accused - I've seen evidence of how abuse affects people, and I've also seen how messy and ambiguous relationships can get, even before we get to salacious celebrity trials like Depp etc. I don't presume anything either way, I've just seen enough to be open to various possibilities. I also served on the jury of a similar case to this between two young former partners, where the physical evidence was quite slender (certainly no visual material of the same nature, or recordings) in comparison with what has been offered to the public, and where the chief witness/alleged victim was also reluctant to testify; again, one can't completely generalize, but I do know that if it's deemed in the public interest then the PS will take a case forward, and it's likely (though, again, not guaranteed) that they would need something more than a reluctance to testify or an indication that the accuser changed their mind for this to happen. Bear in mind that the accuser indicated a wish to withdraw the case months before the CPS dropped it -it was only, as we have been led to understand, new evidence in addition that saw the PS re-evaluate.
The club will also have examined the defence case for potential holes and potential blowback, including the possibility that the lead witness could revive their accusation (at least in the public sphere) if the relationship went wrong: it may sound callous but it's due diligence. They would want a reasonably comprehensive explanation as to how all those materials came to be, what were the conditions of their creation. Again, what they were provided with is not clear, but in terms of the CPS materials, I've seen indications that this included a longer-version of the tape. In terms of the images, the former accuser indicated on social media that these were mocked up - again, this could be a cover, it could be true, neither is technically implausible purely in terms of 'make-up'. It's possible there is a middle-ground, i.e a mutual fight accounting for the arm bruises, which were then 'touched up along with applying something to the face: again, that wouldn't paint MG in a good light as a young, physically strong male, so its not a defence of his 'good character'. Indeed, I've said before that there are plenty of reasons made public and not denied in the same way these allegations have been, either by club or player, why he should be contrite and have to demonstrate evidence of this through monitored conduct (or non-criminal 'probation') and perhaps charity work/volunteering of some sort, in addition to getting therapy.
All I'm saying is that it's not constructive to begin with the premise that he has been found guilty of these acts or that, without access to the information available only to a select few people, to maintain that he was de facto guilty. If the club believed he was escaping merely on a technicality, the probability (again, I'm not saying this definitively, because who knows with them), upon advice from actual lawyers, would be to find a way of cancelling his contract. Not for moral reasons, but around potential blowback.
