City star accused of raping woman while telling her: ‘Don’t move’
FOOTBALLER DENIES STRING OF SEX CHARGES AT TRIAL
MANCHESTER City footballer Benjamin Mendy held a young woman’s arms behind her back and raped her, prosecutors have alleged.
The defender, 28, is on trial at Chester Crown Court accused of eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault.
He denies all charges. Co-defendant Louis Saha Matturie, 41, has also pleaded not guilty to eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault, relating to eight women.
Yesterday, jurors were told that Mr Mendy was a ‘predator’ who used Mr Matturie as a ‘fixer’ to rape and sexually attack women.
He is alleged to have attacked seven women at his home near Prestbury, Cheshire, between October 2018 and August last year.
Jurors were told about a significant date involving a pool party, a trip to a nightclub and a post-club party back at Mr Mendy’s house, on July 23 and into July 24 last year.
Over the course of several hours, Mr Mendy is alleged to have raped three young women.
Prosecutors allege that one of the victims was also raped by Mr Matturie.
Mr Matturie is also accused of the sexual assault of another woman in the same 24-hour period. One victim was invited to the party by Mr Matturie in return for money – an attempt to ‘procure’ her as a potential victim, it is alleged.
Jurors heard Mr Mendy invited the woman to the cinema room in the house. Although the woman did not want sex, Mr Mendy ‘persisted in his demands’ until she gave in and he raped her, the court heard.
When the girl’s friend came looking for her, jurors heard two of Mr Mendy’s associates blocked her way.
Following the pool party, the court was told Mr Mendy, Mr Matturie and others went to China White nightclub in Manchester city centre.
Two woman who had been at the pool party returned to Mr Mendy’s house after the club, where both were raped, it is alleged. One was drunk and remembered being in the swimming pool, jurors heard.
Her next recollection was being face down on a sofa in the living room with her arms being held behind her back, prosecutor Timothy Cray QC said.
Jurors were told that Mendy was raping her from behind while saying ‘don’t move, don’t move.’ Mr Matturie is also alleged to have raped the same woman.
The second woman had also gone to bed only to wake up to find Mr Mendy raping her, the court heard.
The following month, both defendants are alleged to have raped another woman who attended a party at Mr Mendy’s home.
Prosecutors say Mr Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, worked as a ‘helper’ for Mr Mendy and regularly visited his home.
“The allegations show that one of Mr Saha’s jobs for Mr Mendy was to find young women and to create the situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted,” Mr Cray told the court.
He said the French international ‘enjoyed a privileged and moneyed lifestyle’ at the time of the alleged offences.
Opening the trial yesterday morning, Mr Cray told the court: “The prosecution case is simple. It has little to do with football. Instead, we say, 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.”
The QC said the feeling of the alleged victims ‘counted for nothing.’
He added: “These women were disposable: things to be used for sex, then thrown to one side. That was the effect of deliberate, planned choices the defendants made, and the desires they let loose many times.”
Outlining the prosecution case, Mr Cray stated: “Our case is that the defendants’ pursuit of these 13 women turned them into predators, who were prepared to commit serious sexual offences.”
Mr Cray told jurors that the study and master bedroom in Mr Mendy’s Cheshire mansion had ‘special locking doors,’ which could only be opened from within.
A mechanism on the doors created a ‘panic room’ in case of burglary and that only someone who knew how to unlock them could do so, he said.
“Two of the witnesses allege rapes in those rooms,” Mr Cray told the court. “They felt they were locked in by those locking doors.”
Jurors heard that the defendants are accused of taking some of the witnesses’ mobile phones away, while taking other complainants to rooms they believed were locked.
Some of the women are alleged to have been drunk with the defendants accused of wanting them to be drunk.
The prosecution added: “The prosecution accept that, some women would consent to have sex with Mendy, but not every woman would or did.
“The big jump that Mendy made was to want every woman who arrived at his address to be available for sex. Saha shared that mindset.
“Together, they had convinced themselves that the free, informed consent to sex of the women who came into their orbits, just did not matter.”
● Proceeding