REMORSELESS rapist Ched Evans’s future career still hung in the balance yesterday as talks on him signing for Oldham wound up for the day without resolution.

The Professional Footballers Association (PFA) — which is supporting the convicted criminal’s bid to return to the limelight — and the club reportedly began drawing up a joint statement yesterday but several issues remained unsettled and talks will continue today.

The mid-table League One outfit confirmed on Monday that they were considering offering Evans a route back into professional football.

The Latics announcement caused an uproar, with over 45,000 people rushing to sign a petition urging Oldham not to give the player — who is currently out on licence having served half of his five-year sentence behind bars — a contract.

The woman behind the petition, who goes by the pseudonym Jean Hatchet, said yesterday that she was concerned that Evans “doesn’t know what rape is.”

Nearly 170,000 people signed her petition, successfully putting pressure on his former club Sheffield United not to let him back.

“He was convicted of rape and he still doesn’t acknowledge it was rape. And that’s the incredibly dangerous message,” she told BBC News.

Evans admits having sex with a 19-year-old woman in a hotel room but claims she gave consent despite her level of drunkenness precluding it.

The rapist’s supporters have outed the victim online, subjecting her to such levels of abuse that she’s been forced to move home five times.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that between 60,000 and 95,000 women are raped each year in the UK. Close to 16,000 are recorded as crimes but there are only just over 1,000 convictions.