I meant their council before his reconciliation, in the event he himself had no concrete evidence.
Yes, I get that.
What I'm suggesting is that it makes no sense that his legal people would capitulate there and then upon being informed that he, personally, doesn't possess any concrete evidence that she is just plain lying. How could he be expected to have that? The evidence is an audio recording and pictures made/taken by
her, this is evident.
But if there is a longer version of the audio (and there
is, we know this), surely the first and very obvious step by his legal people would be to demand that the accuser produces this so that it can be submitted as evidence, no?
I mean, the premise here is that the longer version provides context that at the very least mitigates what we hear in the short version (and possibly even places him in the clear altogether), no?
Unless his legal people are extremely incompetent, then, their initial advice to him (before the reconciliation, as you put it) can't have been to just give up and try his best to get back in her good graces. That would be insane: there is an audio (a full audio) out there which potentially clears him, or at the very least goes a long way towards doing so.
ETA Needless to say, perhaps, but: the legal representatives of a millionaire footballer
wrongly (as per himself) accused of beating up a woman would - obviously - also demand that the photographic evidence be scrutinized by experts of all kinds. They wouldn't go: "Oh, she's posted pics on Instagram? And you don't have pics of her photoshoppin' those other pics on her laptop? Oops. Sorry, kid. You're fecked."