Manchester City footballer, Benjamin Mendy allegedly ‘raped a woman, 29, during lockdown party at his mansion after asking her boyfriend if it was ok if he tried to have sex with her, a court was told on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old Premier League star sat in the witness box as his lawyer, Eleanor Laws KC, began taking him through the first of the nine allegations he faces involving six different women.
Mendy said only now did he understand why the young woman then got upset, the jury at his rape trial at Chester Crown Court heard.
Mendy denied lying to ‘save his own skin’ over the alleged rape and sexual assault of a string of women.
The footballer led a partying lifestyle, having sex with women ‘within seconds and minutes’ of meeting them, the court heard.
Mendy is accused of being a ‘predator’ who turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game, prosecutors allege, regularly going clubbing in Manchester before holding ‘after-parties’ where young women were invited back to his Cheshire mansion and sexually assaulted.
He denies rape and sexual assaults on six women and told the jury any sexual contact was always consensual.
Mendy sat in the witness box, a French interpreter beside him, as Timothy Cray KC, prosecuting, began cross-examination of the defendant.
The defendant said that after his arrest for rape he had time to think in prison and realised his life was going ‘badly wrong’ and the way he was having sex with multiple women was bad for him and might ‘upset’ the women.
Mr. Cray said: ‘It’s a problem for you, within seconds, minutes, of meeting some women who you know nothing about, you would be having sex with them.
‘You were having sex with women without any thought of contraception.
‘You’re having sex with women who your mates had just had sex with, or about to have sex with.
‘But the furthest you are willing to go in terms of hurt, is all you have done is hurt some women’s feelings?”
Mendy replied: ‘Now I realise, yes.’
‘Well help us with this,’ Mr Cray continued. ‘Has anything that any of them has said made you think, “Do you know what, I might have got some of these acts of mine really badly wrong?”
‘As we listened to what the women have been saying, have you had this thought, “Maybe I should’ve taken more thought to see whether they really were consenting?”‘
Mendy replied: ‘It was all consensual.’
Mr. Cray continued: ‘In your case, there’s no room for mistake or misunderstanding with what you are doing with the six women. They have got that completely wrong.
‘Or, you got it completely wrong and you are lying? You are lying to save your own skin?’
‘No,’ Mendy replied.
Mendy denied that he might not make ‘good decision’ or misjudge things when drunk.
Mr. Cray then showed the jury a video clip of CCTV taken from Mendy’s home in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire.
Recorded at 4.42 am on August 23 last year, it showed Mendy returning from clubbing in Manchester for an after-party at his mansion where he later allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl who also went back to his house.
In the clip Mendy is seen staggering around a Range Rover car, also containing Man City teammate Jack Grealish, his trousers low over his backside and wearing a head scarf.
Mr. Cray continued: ‘Are you wearing some sort of scarf? You can’t even walk straight. When you are like that, don’t you agree, you might get things wrong, for example about whether a girl wants you or not?’
‘No,’ replied Mendy.
The jury heard that shortly after arriving back at the house, co-accused Louis Saha Matturie leaves with a girl, aged 23, to buy £150 of alcohol from a local garage to carry on partying.
On the way back he is alleged to have raped the 23-year-old in the car.
Later on, Mendy also had consensual sex with the same woman after he had allegedly raped the 17-year-old in his home office and trophy room, where Mr Grealish was later found asleep by other party-goers, the court heard.
Mr. Cray continued: ‘I asked you at the start, do you think with that much drink, having sex with girls you have never met, might just be dangerous territory, where you can make mistakes as to what they really wanted?’
‘No,’ replied the defendant.
The first woman to accuse Mendy of sex offences was aged 29 at the time and had gone to his house, The Spinney in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, in October 2018.
She told the jury she made it clear she was interested in her boyfriend, not Mendy, but he grabbed her and tried to rape her on a bed.
Earlier Mendy, the woman, and others had been out clubbing in Manchester and then all stayed the night at Mendy’s home, with the woman sleeping in a bedroom with her boyfriend, one of the footballer’s friends.
Mendy said the morning after he asked his friend how he would feel if he tried to have sex with her.
The footballer, speaking in a strong French accent, told the jury: ‘I realise it is disrespectful and bad, I asked him if it was OK if I tried to have sex with her. He told me yes.’
Mendy said he went to the bedroom where she was having a shower and told her she was ‘sexy’.
Wearing just a towel the woman flirted with him, he said, and then they began touching each other.
‘Then I ask her if we can have sex. Then, ”No, because of my boyfriend,” to which Mendy told her: ‘He was fine with that.’
Mendy continued: ‘She started to be upset. I said: ”You can ask him if you want to?” She continued to be upset.’
He said he then left the bedroom and went back downstairs to the lounge.
Ms. Laws, defending, asked Mendy: ‘Do you understand, now, why she might have been upset?’
‘Now, yes,’ Mendy replied.
After the woman came downstairs Mendy said she could not get a taxi so arranged for his driver to take her to a train station so she could go home.
Mendy was also asked about a comment he had made the night before while they were all drinking and dancing in the nightclub.
He said the woman had been flirting with him and while dancing with her boyfriend he had whispered to her: ‘I am going to kidnap you.’
Mendy said this was just ‘joking’, adding: ‘The mood was good. Good vibes.
Ms. Laws moved on to the next allegation that two years later, in October 2021, Mendy had raped a 20-year-old woman three times at his home.
This was during the ‘rule of six’ period of the pandemic lockdown, and Mendy said he was trying to ‘hide’ the fact that he was hosting parties at his Cheshire mansion.
Mendy said: ‘It was wrong to have done that, I regret it , I feel like so embarrassed again, it was not the right thing to do.’
On October 10 last year police had come to his home during a party but the next night he had another party at home after going to a bar in nearby Alderley Edge and inviting girls back, including the 20-year-old rape complainant.
Visitors had been warned not to take photos or videos of his home during the lockdown-busting party but Mendy said he spotted the woman taking some video of the swimming pool area and grabbed her phone.
Mendy said he deleted a Snapchat memories video off her phone and began scrolling through her camera roll to check for photos.
‘I found a picture, naked, of her. When I saw that, I was like, ”Wow” Do you have more?’ Mendy told the jury.
‘She says: ”Yes, I have more”.’
Mendy said she agreed to go upstairs to his bedroom to show him more naked pictures on her phone, kept in a folder, ‘My eyes only.’
Mendy said he then went to the en suite bathroom and when he returned the woman had stripped to her knickers and bra.
He said she agreed to give him oral sex and to ‘play around’, but he denied trying to penetrate her.
Mendy said the woman was worried her sister at the party would be looking for her so they exchanged Snapchat details and left the room.
The woman then left his home but one of her friends stayed and had sex with Mendy, staying the night at his home.
The morning after he got a text message from co-accused Louis Saha Matturie, who had received a text message from one of the woman’s friends, saying she was upset about what happened and had not consented to sexual activity.
Mendy sent a text back to Matturie saying: ‘Bro, she took some snap, I say delete it. I see a few pics of her, good a***, sexy big t***. She suck me. That’s it bro. I didn’t force her.’
Prosecutors say Mendy is a ‘predator’ who ‘turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game’, while co-defendant Matturie allegedly had the job of finding young women for sex, which he denies.
Mendy denies seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women.
Matturie, 41, of Eccles, Salford, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven young women.
The trial continues.
