Last month, the courts cleared a Manchester City player of rape charges, but as he walks free, the soccer world’s image suffers.
A court heard that Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy raped women in “panic rooms” in his isolated mansion from which they believed they couldn’t escape.
If that was not bad enough, a jury at Chester crown court heard in September that the 28-year-old French international defender used his wealth and fame to entice women back to his gated Cheshire home and rape them when they either said no or were too drunk to consent.
The court heard that he met many of the women in Manchester nightclubs, often with the assistance of a “fixer,” Louis Saha Matturie, 41, known as Saha, who was on trial with him on multiple counts of rape and sexual assault.
But last month, to the surprise of many, on the judge’s recommendation, Mendy was found not guilty of one count of rape.
Mr Mendy, 28, was cleared of raping a 19-year-old woman at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire, on July 24, last year.
Matturie, a co-accused, was also found not guilty of two counts of rape against the same woman.
They are still on trial for alleged sexual offences, which both of them deny.
After the prosecution offered no further evidence and formal not guilty counts were entered, Judge Stephen Everett ordered the jury to clear the defendants of those counts.
There are talks of a private video showing the woman the woman having “enthusiastic sex” with Mr Matturie when she claimed she had been raped.
Panic Rooms
The story will always be about Mendy’s cinema and panic rooms in his home. The people will always imagine how the women were drunk and attacked.
Based on the allegations made against the City player, the panic rooms are rooms that has locking mechanisms stopping them opening from the outside.
The court also heard that the youngest among the women was a 17 year old. The reports say most of the women were drunk and wasted. They could not have consented to sex or even say no.
Matturie, is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for Mr Mendy and he would have his fair share of the spoils. Some of the women would be shared between the accused.
Prosecutor Timothy Cray QC said Mr Mendy’s mansion, called The Spinney and located in the village of Mottram St Andrew, was “part and parcel of how the defendants were able to gain control over their victims.”
Following the alleged multiple rapes committed by his teammate Benjamin Mendy, English football star Jack Grealish’s name has appeared in court for the first time.
The 17-year-old girl who accused Mendy, 28, and his friend and “fixer” Matturie of raping her told the Chester Crown Court that Matturie also raped another woman who was present at Mendy’s mansion when the incident occurred.
The teen also claimed that the woman had sex with Jack Grealish on the night she was sexually abused.
However, the woman who has accused Benjamin Mendy of raping her has denied she had sex with Jack Grealish.
Intervening in a court trial after one woman at the party claimed that the Manchester City winger had slept with her, she denied the claims.
Grealish was at a pool party at Mendy’s home when the alleged ‘rape’ took place.
The Predator
Prosecutors have alleged Mr Mendy was a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”.
Mendy still faces seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women and he denies all these claims.
Mendy denies allegations of sexual assault on six young women, one attempted rape, and seven rapes. Saha, of Eccles, Salford, is accused of three counts of sexual assault and six counts of rape against seven young women.
Both men claim that any sexual activity they did have with women or girls was consensual. The cases are still ongoing.
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