How Manchester City’s Benjamin Mendy Allegedly ‘Raped Three Women In One Night’

Following a pool party at his mansion and a subsequent nightclub outing, Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy raped three women in the same night, a court has been told.

The 28-year-old is charged with raping three women following a party at his Cheshire mansion designed in the Grand Designs style and a trip to Manchester’s China White nightclub on July 23–24, 2016.

Prosecutor Timothy Cray QC said the jury at Chester Crown Court on Monday that Mendy raped a 22-year-old and two 19-year-old women on the evening of July 23 and early on the morning of July 24.

One of the 19-year-olds and a second 22-year-old lady are both suspected of being raped during the same time period by his co-accused, 40-year-old Louis Saha Matturie.

After the lockdown limitations were relaxed and the new Premier League season had begun, according to Mr. Cray, this incident occurred.

According to reports, both men presumed every woman “who heard the gates (of Mendy’s home) close behind her was accessible for sex” and treated women with “callous disregard.”

Saha allegedly requested one woman to drive him to a nearby store during Mendy’s pool party.

The jury was informed that on the way back, he attempted to kiss her and grabbed hold of her bare legs.

Saha allegedly invited a woman, 22, who worked at a nightclub in Manchester, to the pool party in exchange for cash in an effort to “procure” her as a possible victim.

Mendy invited her to the cinema room in the house. She agreed, but was uneasy and asked her friend to ‘come look for her’ if she did not return in five to ten minutes.

The 22-year-old did not want sex but he ‘persisted in his demands’ until she gave in and he raped her, the court heard.

Jurors were told the other girl did come looking for her – but found two of Mendy’s associates blocking her way.

The court heard:

• Two complainants said they were held in ‘panic rooms’ where they were attacked
• Mendy and Saha viewed women as ‘disposable things to be used for sex’
• Court heard the pair ‘turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game’
• One alleged victim told friend to find her but got blocked by Mendy’s friends 
• Many of the women were much younger than the accused, one just 17-years-old
• Court heard Mendy attacked one woman, 19, declaring ‘Don’t move, don’t move’
• A second, who was also 19, woke up to find the footballer raping her 
• Both Mendy and Saha have denied all charges and say all sex consensual 

After the pool party, Mendy, Saha and others went to China White nightclub in Manchester.

Two women, both 19, who had been to the pool party, returned to Mendy’s house after the club, where both were raped, it is alleged.

One was drunk and she remembered being in the swimming pool.

Her next recollection was being faced down on a sofa in the living room with her arms being held behind her back.

Mendy was raping her from behind saying, ‘Don’t move, don’t move’, the court heard.

Forensic examination of the teenager’s underwear later revealed she had also allegedly been raped by Saha, but she had no recollection of any intercourse.

The second 19-year-old had also gone to bed only to wake up to find Mendy raping her, the court heard.

The jury was told one complainant, who first met Mendy in Barcelona, ended up at his home after going into Manchester for food and drinks with the player and another man.

Mr Cray said the woman had made it very clear that she was not interested in Mendy.

He said: ‘The next day, she was having a shower when Mendy entered the bathroom and started to touch himself in front of her.

‘She told him to leave and tried to get a towel to cover herself up.

‘She also tried to get her underwear from her bag but Mendy took it from her, saying words like, ‘I just want to see you’.’

The prosecutor said the woman was unable to leave the bathroom and they ended up on the bed with the woman on Mendy’s lap.

He said: ‘She tried to move but she was unable to get away from him.’

Mr Cray told the jury that key features of the alleged offences included the targeting of young women, explaining that some of the complainants were 17 and 18 at the time.

He said these features included targeting ‘women who were so drunk almost to the extent that they had little or no memory of the incidents, or were asleep, or they were waking from sleep’.

Mr Cray said other similar features included Mendy using an ‘intro line’ that he just wanted to see the victim naked and both defendants raping the same woman.

Mendy denies eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault relating to seven women.

Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight women.

The opening of the case began with the prosecution declaring the trial involved ‘men who rape and sexually assault women, because they think they are powerful, and because they think they can get away with it’.

Opening the case Mr Cray QC had told the jury: ‘The case is simple. Actually, this case has little to do with football. 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.

‘They knew very well what they were doing. They turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game. They were prepared to cross that line over and over again. That was the effect of their game.

‘To them these women were disposable things to be used for sex and thrown to one side.

‘Central to the case is Mendy’s home at the time. We say Mendy’s house is part and parcel of how the defendants gained control of the victims.

‘It’s a mansion. But more importantly, it was isolated, as so many of the victims thought.

‘On occasions when they got there, the victims had their phone taken from them. Some of the complainants were taken to rooms which were locked.’

Mr Cray told jurors that Saha, of Eccles, Salford, was Mendy’s friend and fixer, and one of his jobs was ‘to find young women and to create the situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted’.

The prosecutor said Mendy was a ‘reasonably famous football player’ who ‘because of his wealth and status, others were prepared to help him to get what he wanted’.

He added: ‘Our case is that the defendants’ pursuit of these 13 women turned them into predators, who were prepared to commit serious sexual offences.’

He said ‘the fact they would not take ‘no’ for an answer’ would be something the jurors will ‘hear time and time again’.

The prosecutor said Mendy and Saha say in ‘broad terms’ that all the women consented to sex, willingly with only a couple of allegations where there is a denial that anything sexual happened.

Timothy Cray added there are no ‘big disputes’ about times or places and the ‘what happened’ is not controversial.

But a central question is whether the women consented to sex.

Mr Cray added: ‘Ultimately, these cases are about where the line is drawn.

You will be able to weigh up whether, in each case, the defendants crossed those lines because this is central, readily understandable life experience – you will know where the truth is after having heard the women concerned, the challenges to them and the other evidence that is relevant to the allegations in the charges.’

Mr Cray said Mendy and Saha denied any wrongdoing and instead claimed the women had consented to sex, often ‘willingly and enthusiastically’. But the barrister said that the fact that the pair did not care if the women were in obvious distress, seriously intoxicated through alcohol, much younger than them or had simply gone to Mendy’s house to meet friends showed that their view of consent was ‘miles away’ from that of any reasonable person.

‘These defendants weren’t in some happy state of sexual ignorance, they knew very well what they were doing,’ Mr Cray added. ‘They turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game and if women got hurt or distressed – too bad.’

At lunchtime the jury was shown a walkthrough video of The Spinney mansion, complete with a swimming pool and Jaws-style mural and gym with paintings of Mendy and his name plastered all over the walls.

Last week, the names of Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish, Kyle Walker, Riyad Mahrez and John Stones, all either current or ex-Manchester City players, were read to jurors ahead of the trial.

Dates of all of the alleged attacks