People aren't ignoring it they're making the reasonable assumption that it was a statement from the victim or her family explaining away the existing evidence. Given the victims choice to stay with the accused that's expected.
It's really down to others to provide an explanation that is more likely than that given the clubs and police wording. Not knowing is a fine basis not to criminally judge someone but it shouldn't be a sufficient basis to just ignore all other public information and thus nullify any judgment. People rightly will reach for the most probably conclusion over sticking their head in the sand.
Ok, but following on from that, is it legitimate for columnists or reporters to write pieces which, when castigating the club, de facto assume his guilt? Or for people to launch social media campaigns threatening to boycott sponsors or attack the club on the basis that the club are seen to have dealt insufficiently harshly with a guilty player, even though both CPS and club have indicated that the evidence lies in his favour?
All through this thread we've had those arguing for the necessity of treating him as guilty relying upon the least 'charitable' or most severe interpretation of the available evidence, and the 'weakest' (necessarily speculative, since none of us know) version of the counter-evidence, despite their case for excluding MG itself relying upon an acknowledgement of how severe the alleged crime was and how compelling the initial evidence was. It is arguably just as probable, whatever framing has taken place regarding probability elsewhere here, that the counter-evidence had to be substantial for the case not to be taken to trial. A case can go to trial even if a key witness refuses to co-operate (as people more familiar with case law have already stated).
You can accurately say, using statistics, that the majority of accusations don't go to trial; conversely I can, albeit anecdotally, note from served on a jury in a similar case, that cases can and do go to court with less evidence than that made public here -and with witnesses also being reluctant to testify. In addition, I've also worked in social service(support work inhouse and outreach) environments where even in cases where there was evidence of partners previously fighting and living in 'chaotic' environments where evidence of substance consumption might make testimony difficult to corroborate, claims of sexual assault were (quite properly) taken seriously by the police and investigated, with prosecution then undertaken in more than one instance - again, despite the victim or alleged victim's reluctance . It doesn't mean that the system is on balance delivering for victims of sexual assault - just that at the least there isn't some absolute rule about thresholds: if anything, arguably it'd be more likely the 'public interest' argument would prevail, all else being equal, in such a high-profile case and the outcry following the evidence made public.
That doesn't mean he didn't commit some if not all of the offences -it just means the any claims we make relating to 'ought' rather than 'my gut says', or 'I would prefer' have to be a lot more modest. And if people say 'I don't have to do anything', then frankly, at a 'meta-level', the one thing they do have to do (unless they're complete nihilists, or illiberal, making a mockery of any idea of objective justice and turning it purely into assertion of will), is refrain from talking about the 'just' thing to do. People are fully entitled to think 'there's no amount of hypothetical evidence that could change my mind', so long as they're not hiding this feeling or gut judgment behind a call to uncover the truth or making their demands and calls for accountability on the part of the club on the basis of' the evidence...