Alleged Mendy sex victim ‘wanted to sue Man City’
ONE of top footballer Benjamin Mendy’s alleged sex attack victims was planning to sue his club Manchester City, a jury heard yesterday.
The Premier League star’s barrister claimed the woman was in a WhatsApp group with another alleged victim who says she was raped three times by French player Mendy.
Details were revealed yesterday at Chester Crown Court where the alleged triple rape victim was crossexamined by defence barrister Eleanor Laws QC.
The woman has told the jury she was raped three times in a 15-minute attack in a locked room at Mendy’s £4.8million mansion in Prestbury, Cheshire, in 2020.
She was questioned about her claim to police that she had met the other complainant – who says she was sexually assaulted by Mendy in January 2021.
Miss Laws said that in fact the two women were members of the WhatsApp group, had been on holiday together and had been out for dinner and drinks 25 times in one year.
The barrister said the woman was ‘trying to minimise’ how well she knew the other complainant who had reported her allegation to police two days after exchanging messages on WhatsApp. Miss Laws asked: ‘Do you know that she wanted to sue Man City for what had happened to her? She alleges that Mr Mendy had grabbed her groin area over clothing.’ The rape complainant replied: ‘I don’t remember.’
She added: ‘ I did not know about her allegations apart from the fact that she had been sexually assaulted. When I heard I felt awful. I took two months off work.’
Miss Laws suggested to her: ‘You persuaded yourself that Mr Mendy had done something wrong instead of something which was entirely consensual.’ The woman replied: ‘I am absolutely certain about what happened. I did not give consent at any point.’
Mendy, 28, denies eight rapes, one attempted rape and one sexual assault.
His alleged ‘fixer’, Louis Saha Matturie, 41, of Eccles, Greater Manchester denies eight rapes and four sexual assaults. The trial continues.