Benjamin Mendy's friend raped me while I slept, woman tells court

A teenager told police she woke up to find a friend of footballer Benjamin Mendy raping her, a court has heard.

The woman, who was 17 at the time of the alleged attack, said she went to Louis Saha Matturie's Manchester flat with a friend on 8 April 2021.

She told Chester Crown Court she became tired and Mr Matturie told her to sleep in the spare bedroom, but she later awoke to find herself being attacked.

Mr Matturie and Mr Mendy have both denied a number of sexual offences.

In a police interview played to the jury, the young woman told officers she thought the person "spooning" her from behind was another man who had been at the flat, who was identified only by the name Ghost.

However, she said the person had a hood up over his face and did not say anything to her and she had only realised after the attack that it was Mr Matturie.

"I started crying," she told the officers.

She added that she "just sat there for a moment" and then shouted and "ran out crying".

"When it was happening, I was not properly awake," she said.

"There was a point where I properly woke up and he got off me.

"It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it was horrible at the time."

Lisa Wilding KC, defending Mr Matturie, told the court that a month before the alleged attack, the woman's friend had told her that she had woken up to find herself being raped by the 41-year-old.

She said the woman had returned to the flat despite that allegation and had had consensual sex while being fully aware of that being with Mr Matturie

She added that police later found an email on the teenager's phone from a company titled Compensation Experts.

Ms Wilding asked the woman if the email was "about what you say happened with Saha?"

"No," she replied.

She also denied Ms Wilding's claim that she had "deliberately lied about what happened that night and lied to support your friend in her claim against Saha".

Prosecutors have alleged that Mr Matturie was a "fixer", with the job of finding young women for Mr Mendy, and that the Manchester City footballer was a "predator" who "turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game".

Mr Mendy, of Prestbury, Cheshire, denies seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault.

Mr Matturie of Eccles, Salford, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault.

The trial continues.

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