Benjamin Mendy: Women disposable to 'predator' footballer, jury told

Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy is a "predator" who "turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game", a court has heard.

The 28-year-old is accused of eight counts of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault.

Opening the case, Timothy Cray QC said it had "very little to do with football" and more about men who "think they are powerful".

He said the women were "disposable" to Mr Mendy.

Chester Crown Court heard the offences against seven young women are alleged to have taken place at Mr Mendy's "isolated mansion" home between October 2018 and August 2021.

Some women said they had their mobile phones taken away, while others said they were attacked in locked rooms.

The court was told Mr Mendy raped three women in the same night following a pool party at his mansion and a trip to Manchester's China White nightclub.

The jury heard that one woman was drunk and remembered being in the swimming pool, with her next recollection being face down on a sofa being raped in the living room with her arms held behind her back.

Mr Mendy, a French international, of Prestbury, Cheshire, is on trial alongside co-defendant Louis Saha Matturie, 41.

The pair, who appeared in court assisted by a French translator, deny all the allegations.

Jurors heard how the £52m Premier League star was "prepared to cross that line" of consent "over and over again" and if "women got hurt or distressed, too bad".

Mr Cray said: "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."

The prosecutor said the feelings of the women "counted for nothing".

He continued: "These women were disposable: things to be used for sex, then thrown to one side.

"That was the effect of deliberate, planned choices the defendants made, and the desires they let loose many times."

The prosecution told the court how the footballer enjoyed a "privileged and moneyed lifestyle", and that his "wealth and status" meant "others were prepared to help him to get what he wanted".

"The doors of restaurants and nightclubs were open to him, people wanted to be with him," Mr Cray said.

Mr Cray said Mr Matturie was his friend and fixer, and he would "find young women and to create the situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted".

He said: "The acts that the defendants did together show callous indifference to the women they went after.

"In their minds, and this could not be clearer, the stream of women they brought to their homes existed purely to be pursued for sex."

The jury was told there are seven complainants against Mr Mendy, and eight against Mr Matturie, with two complainants alleging both men raped them with the average age of the women concerned being 20 years, nine months.

Mr Cray said key features included the pair 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".

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

Mr Cray continued: "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 would "hear time and time again".

The court heard how Mr Mendy's home, The Spinney, in Mottram St Andrew in rural Cheshire, was "part and parcel" of how he and Mr Matturie were able to abuse the women.

Mr Cray said nine young women arrived at the address and afterwards made complaints of rape or sexual assault against the defendants between 2018 and 2021.

There are also four separate complaints against Mr Matturie involving allegations away from Mr Mendy's house, in Manchester and Sheffield.

The women involved were vulnerable for a number of reasons once arriving at Mr Mendy's house, which was described as an isolated mansion, the jury was told.

The court heard how they said they had their mobile phones taken away, while some believed they were in locked rooms.

The jury was shown drone footage with aerial shots from above Mr Mendy's gated mansion.

Two of the women said Mr Mendy raped them in locked rooms - an office and the main bedroom - the court heard.

The jury was shown video footage of a police officer demonstrating the locks on the doors, as Mr Cray explained they were legitimately used by wealthy individuals.

These had a special locking mechanism which created a "panic room" in case of burglary, which can only be opened from the inside.

"The point is that you have to know how to open them from the inside, and you'll perhaps see how the witnesses might have gotten the impression that they are locked in," Mr Cray continued.

Mr Cray told the court how the defendants said 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.

"Everyone should have that basic choice, that basic dignity, the right to say 'no' to sex," he said.

"You don't lose that right because you've been to a bar or dressed for a nightclub or gone to a footballer's house."

The trial, expected to last over three months, continues.

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