Footballer ‘said he’d had sex with 10,000 women’
Star made boast after locking victim up at his mansion and raping her, jury told
BENJAMIN Mendy boasted of sleeping with 10,000 women after allegedly raping a woman three times, a court heard yesterday.
the woman, then 20, claims Mendy raped her in a locked bedroom at his mansion and ignored her protests, telling her: ‘You can’t get out anyway.’
She said she complied because she was ‘scared’ and did not know ‘whether he had a gun or knife’.
Afterwards, she said the footballer said: ‘Don’t tell anyone and you can come here every night’, as if it was a ‘privilege’ to have sex with him.
She said she had been invited back to his isolated home with friends after meeting the Manchester City star and France international at a bar in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, in October 2020.
Yesterday, jurors at Chester Crown Court heard the woman describe the alleged attack in an interview recorded in November 2020. She said when the group arrived at the house in nearby Prestbury they were asked not to take photos because Mendy said he could be fined £200,000 under Covid rules about indoor gatherings.
the woman said she was looking at her messages when Mendy, 28, saw her, took her phone and said he wanted to check it. She added: ‘He went upstairs and I followed.
‘there were big wooden doors and he opened them by touching a screen with his fingerprint. He was going through my phone. there were private pictures in there. He was looking at pictures of my bum.
‘I followed him in to get my phone and the door shut behind us.
‘I was saying, “listen, I just want my phone. I do not want to have sex with you. I just want to go now”. He said, “the door is locked anyway”.’
Mendy allegedly told her that if she took her clothes off, he would let her go because he ‘just wanted to look’. the woman claims: ‘He said, “I promise I won’t touch you. I want to see your t**s... you cannot get out anyway”.’ She took off her top and jeans as it seemed ‘the lesser of two evils’. She said: ‘I was saying “I really want to go, I do not want to do anything”. He threw the phone on the bed.’ She said that when she ‘rolled over to get it’ Mendy raped her three times.
He allegedly told her afterwards ‘you are too shy’, adding: “It’s fine, I have had sex with 10,000 women”.’
She said: ‘I was very clear, but he would not listen. It could not have been misinterpreted in any way.
‘I was so scared. I did not know whether he had a gun or a knife.
‘I was overwhelmed. I felt I did not have a choice. He said I could come over every night and seemed to think it was a privilege to have that done every night. It was the longest day of my life but it could not have been more than 15 minutes.’
the day after, she got a Snapchat message from Mendy and one from his friend and co-accused Saha Matturie saying: ‘ Are you OK? Please can you call me so we can discuss?’
Eleanor Laws QC, defending, put it to the woman that Mendy had not told her she was locked in.
But the woman replied: ‘It is absolutely true. I was trapped.’ She rejected Mendy’s claim that she had performed a sex act on him.
Mendy denies eight rapes, one attempted rape and one sexual assault. Saha Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, denies eight rapes and four sexual assaults. Both insist that if any sex did take place, it was consensual. the trial continues.
‘He was looking at pictures of my bum’