Mendy cleared of 6 rape charges

MANCHESTER City footballer Benjamin Mendy was yesterday cleared of six counts of rape and one of sexual assault after a trial lasting almost five months.

But the 28-year-old defender faces a retrial after jurors were unable to reach verdicts on a seventh count of rape, plus one of attempted rape, following 67 hours of deliberations. Mendy’s solicitor said the footballer was ‘delighted’ and ‘looks forward to clearing his name’ entirely.

Mendy, pictured, is not expected to play for Manchester City again after his barrister told the trial that his ‘life in football, as he knew it, and in the UK is over’.

Mendy’s friend and alleged ‘fixer’, Louis Saha Matturie, 41, was cleared of three counts of rape. But jurors were unable to reach verdicts on six other counts, and he too faces a retrial.