Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy raped three women in the same night following a pool party at his mansion and a subsequent nightclub trip, a court has heard.
The 28-year-old is accused of raping three women after the party at his Grand Designs-style home in Cheshire, and the trip to China White nightclub in Manchester on July 23-24 last year.
At Chester Crown Court on Monday, prosecutor Timothy Cray QC told jurors on the night of July 23 and the early morning of July 24, Mendy raped a 22-year-old and two 19-year-old women.
His co-accused, Louis Saha Matturie, 40, is also accused of raping one of the 19-year-olds, as well as another 22-year-old woman in the same period.
Mr. Cray said this took place after lockdown restrictions were lifted and the new Premier League season was getting underway.
Both men are said to have treated women with ‘callous indifference’ and assumed any ‘who heard the gates (of Mendy’s home) close behind her’ was ‘available for sex’.
It is alleged during Mendy’s pool party, Saha asked one woman to drive to a local shop with him.
On the way back he tried to kiss her and took hold of her bare legs, the jury were told.
A woman, aged 22, who worked at a nightclub in Manchester, was also at the pool party, invited by Saha in return for money – an attempt to ‘procure’ her as a potential victim, it is alleged.
Mendy invited her to the cinema room in the house. She agreed, but was uneasy and asked her friend to ‘come look for her’ if she did not return in five to ten minutes.
The 22-year-old did not want sex but he ‘persisted in his demands’ until she gave in and he raped her, the court heard.
Jurors were told the other girl did come looking for her – but found two of Mendy’s associates blocking her way.
The court heard:
- Two complainants said they were held in ‘panic rooms’ where they were attacked
- Mendy and Saha viewed women as ‘disposable things to be used for sex’
- Court heard the pair ‘turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game’
- One alleged victim told friend to find her but got blocked by Mendy’s friends
- Many of the women were much younger than the accused, one just 17-years-old
- Court heard Mendy attacked one woman, 19, declaring ‘Don’t move, don’t move’
- A second, who was also 19, woke up to find the footballer raping her
- Both Mendy and Saha have denied all charges and say all sex consensual
After the pool party, Mendy, Saha and others went to China White nightclub in Manchester.
Two women, both 19, who had been to the pool party, returned to Mendy’s house after the club, where both were raped, it is alleged.
One was drunk and she remembered being in the swimming pool.
Her next recollection was being faced down on a sofa in the living room with her arms being held behind her back.
Mendy was raping her from behind saying, ‘Don’t move, don’t move’, the court heard.
Forensic examination of the teenager’s underwear later revealed she had also allegedly been raped by Saha, but she had no recollection of any intercourse.
The second 19-year-old had also gone to bed only to wake up to find Mendy raping her, the court heard.
The jury was told one complainant, who first met Mendy in Barcelona, ended up at his home after going into Manchester for food and drinks with the player and another man.
Mr Cray said the woman had made it very clear that she was not interested in Mendy.
He said: ‘The next day, she was having a shower when Mendy entered the bathroom and started to touch himself in front of her.
‘She told him to leave and tried to get a towel to cover herself up.
‘She also tried to get her underwear from her bag but Mendy took it from her, saying words like, ‘I just want to see you’.’
The prosecutor said the woman was unable to leave the bathroom and they ended up on the bed with the woman on Mendy’s lap.
He said: ‘She tried to move but she was unable to get away from him.’
Mr Cray told the jury that key features of the alleged offences included the targeting of young women, explaining that some of the complainants were 17 and 18 at the time.
He said these features included targeting ‘women who were so drunk almost to the extent that they had little or no memory of the incidents, or were asleep, or they were waking from sleep’.
Mr Cray said other similar features included Mendy using an ‘intro line’ that he just wanted to see the victim naked and both defendants raping the same woman.
Mendy denies eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault relating to seven women.
Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight women.
The opening of the case began with the prosecution declaring the trial involved ‘men who rape and sexually assault women, because they think they are powerful, and because they think they can get away with it’.
Opening the case Mr Cray QC had told the jury: ‘The case is simple. Actually, this case has little to do with football. It is another chapter in a very old story: men who rape and sexually assault women, because they think they are powerful, and because they think they can get away with it.
‘They knew very well what they were doing. They turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game. They were prepared to cross that line over and over again. That was the effect of their game.
‘To them these women were disposable things to be used for sex and thrown to one side.
‘Central to the case is Mendy’s home at the time. We say Mendy’s house is part and parcel of how the defendants gained control of the victims.
‘It’s a mansion. But more importantly, it was isolated, as so many of the victims thought.
‘On occasions when they got there, the victims had their phone taken from them. Some of the complainants were taken to rooms which were locked.’
Mr Cray told jurors that Saha, of Eccles, Salford, was Mendy’s friend and fixer, and one of his jobs was ‘to find young women and to create the situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted’.
The prosecutor said Mendy was a ‘reasonably famous football player’ who ‘because of his wealth and status, others were prepared to help him to get what he wanted’.
He added: ‘Our case is that the defendants’ pursuit of these 13 women turned them into predators, who were prepared to commit serious sexual offences.’
He said ‘the fact they would not take ‘no’ for an answer’ would be something the jurors will ‘hear time and time again’.
The prosecutor said Mendy and Saha say in ‘broad terms’ that all the women consented to sex, willingly with only a couple of allegations where there is a denial that anything sexual happened.
Timothy Cray added there are no ‘big disputes’ about times or places and the ‘what happened’ is not controversial.
But a central question is whether the women consented to sex.
Mr Cray added: ‘Ultimately, these cases are about where the line is drawn.
You will be able to weigh up whether, in each case, the defendants crossed those lines because this is central, readily understandable life experience – you will know where the truth is after having heard the women concerned, the challenges to them and the other evidence that is relevant to the allegations in the charges.’
Mr Cray said Mendy and Saha denied any wrongdoing and instead claimed the women had consented to sex, often ‘willingly and enthusiastically’. But the barrister said that the fact that the pair did not care if the women were in obvious distress, seriously intoxicated through alcohol, much younger than them or had simply gone to Mendy’s house to meet friends showed that their view of consent was ‘miles away’ from that of any reasonable person.
‘These defendants weren’t in some happy state of sexual ignorance, they knew very well what they were doing,’ Mr Cray added. ‘They turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game and if women got hurt or distressed – too bad.’
At lunchtime the jury was shown a walkthrough video of The Spinney mansion, complete with a swimming pool and Jaws-style mural and gym with paintings of Mendy and his name plastered all over the walls.
Last week, the names of Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish, Kyle Walker, Riyad Mahrez and John Stones, all either current or ex-Manchester City players, were read to jurors ahead of the trial.
Dates of all of the alleged attacks
The alleged offenses in date order are:
July 2012 – Saha met a young woman, aged 18, in a nightclub in Manchester. They then went on a date where he took her back to his flat and raped her.
October 2016 – Saha is accused of a further sexual assault against another woman, 18, in Sheffield.
The woman had gone to an address having been invited there by a footballer when Saha tried to kiss her and forced himself on top of her.
October 25, 2018 – Mendy’s first alleged offense is an attempted rape of a woman, aged 29 at the time, at his home, The Spinney, in Prestbury, Cheshire.
Mendy, the woman, and others went into Manchester and later she spent the night at Mendy’s home, with another man.
She made it clear she was not interested in Mendy but the next morning she was having a shower when he entered the bathroom and the footballer tugged her towel away. Mendy tried to rape her on a bed but she struggled and managed to stop him.
October 2020 – Mendy is alleged to have raped a 24-year-old woman three times at his house.
The woman and others had been to a bar in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, and then on to Mendy’s house. The women were asked to hand over their mobile phones, to protect Mendy from social media intrusion, but the 24-year-old hid hers.
Mendy said he would give it back to her if she took her clothes off. She stripped to her underwear, then Mendy threw her phone on the bed. As she bent over to pick it up Mendy got behind her and raped her three times.
January 2, 2021 – Mendy is alleged to have sexually assaulted a different woman, also 24, in the kitchen during a party at his house.
Mendy approached her and grabbed her. Later he used his hand and tongue to make a reference to sex to her.
March 2021 – Saha is alleged to have raped a woman, aged 19, at an apartment on Chapel Street, Salford, close to Manchester city center.
April 2021 – Saha is alleged to have raped a girl, 17, at the same property. She had decided to spend the night at the flat and fell asleep only to later awake to find Saha raping her.
July 23 into July 24 – A pool party was held on the 23rd and carried on into the next day after the defendants went clubbing in Manchester and returned to Mendy’s home to carry on partying.
Over this period Mendy is accused of the rape of three women, one aged 22 and two aged 19 – one of the 19-year-olds also allegedly raped by Saha too.
Saha is also accused of the sexual assault of another woman, aged 22.
July 24, 2021 – After the pool party, Mendy and Saha, and others went to China White nightclub in Manchester.
Two women, both 19, who had been to the pool party, returned to Mendy’s house after the club, where both were raped, it is alleged.
One was drunk and her last memory was being in the swimming pool with her next recollection being face down on a sofa in the living room with her arms being held behind her back.
Mendy was raping her saying, ‘Don’t move, don’t move.’ Saha is also accused of raping the same woman.
The second 19-year-old had gone to bed only to wake up to Mendy raping her.
July 31, 2021 – Saha allegedly raped the same 19-year-old woman he and Mendy are accused of raping on July 23/24.
August 1, 2021 – Saha allegedly sexually assaulted the same woman at Mendy’s home in the cinema room.
August 23, 2021 – Beginning with a party event at Mendy’s house, he is alleged to have twice raped a 17-year-old and Saha is also alleged to have raped the same girl twice and another woman aged 23. The 17-year-old allegedly raped by both men had been invited to Mendy’s house by Saha, where her phone was taken from her.
During the party Mendy took her to an office, where she believed the door was locked and he proceeded to rape her twice. Shortly after she went into the cinema room, where others were present, and she was raped by Saha under a blanket on a sofa. Later she got a taxi back to Manchester, where he raped her again.
Credit: Daily Mail, UK
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