Benjamin Mendy’s trial is underway in England. The former Manchester City French defender, who was released from prison after months in detention, is charged with 8 rapes, sexual assault and attempted rape. He is accused by seven women and denies the ten charges which relate to facts which allegedly took place between October 2018 and August 2021 at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire.
This Monday, in court and before the jury, it was prosecutor Timothy Cray who had the floor. The latter charged the two accused, Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie, whom he accuses of having set up a kind of network supposed to satisfy the player’s sexual appetite. Louis Saha Matturie would have even acted to help his friend. “The charges show that one of Mr. Saha’s tasks for Mr. Mendy was to find young women and create situations where these young women could be raped and sexually assaulted”launched the prosecutor.
And the plan would have even been thought out in detail, with a mansion in Cheshire, where Mendy lived, which was ideally placed to make the women invited there vulnerable. The women were then in a very isolated building and were under psychological pressure. Their mobile phones were notably confiscated and the alleged victims were taken to remote areas of the mansion, which looked like secret rooms.
“Benjamin Mendy wanted every woman who came to his house to be available for sex. Together, they had convinced themselves that the free and informed consent to sex of the women who entered their sockets simply didn’t matter. “criticized Timothy Cray, who then recalls that the defendants claim to have obtained the consent of the victims, which will be the key to this trial.
He then claimed that the lifestyle of the two men, notably Mendy, who was wealthy and popular at the time, was used to obtain sexual favours. “The doors of restaurants and nightclubs were open for the player, people all wanted to be with him. They knew very well what they were doing”said the prosecutor.
In his plea, he then castigated the approach of the two men. “It doesn’t have much to do with football. It’s another chapter in a very old story: men who rape and assault women because they think they have power, and because they think they will get away with it They are predators willing to commit serious sexual abuse“, he denounced.
The trial was originally scheduled to open on July 25, but was postponed for two weeks. It is expected to last fifteen weeks according to the court.
