Man City ‘predator’ on rape charges

LONDON: Manchester City soccer star Benjamin Mendy raped three women in one night after a pool party at his isolated mansion and a night out at a club, a court was told.

Mendy, 28, allegedly attacked the women at his £4.8m ($8.2m) home in Cheshire as he and a friend “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game” and treated them with “callous indifference”.

During a string of attacks, Mendy acted as a “predator” who treated women as “disposable”, it was alleged. Two victims believed they could not escape because the doors to his study and bedroom had been shut with a lock designed to turn them into a panic room, the jury was told.

The French defender denies eight charges of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault. His coaccused, Louis Saha Matturie, 40, (pictured) denies eight charges of rape and four of sexual assault relating to eight young women.

Two women were allegedly raped by both men.

On the opening day of the trial at Chester Crown Court, the jury was told that Saha was a “fixer” for the French World Cup winner and his job was “to find young women and to create the situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted”.

Timothy Cray QC, for the prosecution, said the alleged victims were “vulnerable, scared, isolated” and some thought they were trapped in panic rooms because of the special locks, which could only be opened from the inside not the outside.

Other alleged victims had their phones taken off them on arrival.

Mr Cray said the footballer was alleged to have committed the offences against seven young women between October 2018 and August last year.

Mendy, who was bought for £52m from Monaco, enjoyed a “privileged and moneyed lifestyle” and used his fame and fortune to attack “a stream of women who were brought to his home purely to be pursued for sex”, it was claimed.