Accused of rape and sexual assault by 7 women, footballer Benjamin Mendy faces life imprisonment

It was at the Chester court that the trial against the footballer Benjamin Mendy opened on Wednesday 10 August 2022.

The one who was crowned world champion in the French team in 2018 and who played 4 years for the city of Manchester appears for ten counts relating to sexual violence: eight rapes, one attempted rape and one sexual assault against seven women. The events would all take place at his home. The accused, who denies all guilt, risks life sentence.

In 2021, subsequent accusations

In late August 2021, before the first complaints against him were made public, Benjamin Mendy was suspended from his club, Manchester City, which also withdrew all merchandise in his name from the sale.

The following day and in the following months there were complaints: between September and December 2021 Benjamin Mendy was accused of sexual assault by seven women and is in custody. He will be released in early January and placed under judicial control, pending the trial that began last week.

At the helm, the testimonies follow one another and are described facts that would have occurred between 2018 and 2021, on five separate occasions, at his luxurious home in Cheshire. His alleged modus operandi is chilling: the prosecutor qualifies the 28-year-old Frenchman as a “predator”.

Evidence of great violence

To date, two of the seven alleged victims of the footballer and his accomplice Louis Saha Matturie (unrelated to footballer Louis Saha) have spoken. Everyone tells similar facts today: young women (whose average age is 20 years and 9 months according to Le Monde), met in bars or clubs in Manchester before invite them to Mendy’s luxurious and secluded home.

The alleged victims, all anonymous (this is the case during the rape trials in the UK) and the prosecutor, tell a system in which they would be trapped.

The first complainant thus testifies that in 2018, the day after an evening spent in the footballer’s residence with a friend of his, Benjamin Mendy would have entered the bathroom where he was taking a shower. Scared her, she reportedly covered herself with a towel as he continued to follow her around the room and pull her to him, even though she kept telling him to stop. He says he doesn’t remember the moments that followed, but he remembers a predatory look on her face and the way he looked at her.

The second victim to speak tells a 2020 story that begins in a similar way: in a bar with friends, she is invited to end the evening at Benjamin Mendy’s house. Arriving at his destination, she would have picked up the phone, claiming to prevent him from posting photos of her to avoid a fine (in the region the gatherings were still limited to fight the Covid-19 pandemic).

With the phone in hand, he allegedly lured the young 20-year-old woman into a room whose footballer he would close the very secure door behind her, before telling him she was locked in the room with him. In exchange for returning her phone, he would ask her to get naked, promising not to touch her. That evening, despite her repeated refusals, her plaintiff claims to have raped her three times.

Other alleged victims should be heard during this trial which will last several months. Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie, who firmly deny all charges, face life imprisonment.

Photo credit: Benjamin Mendy / Instagram screenshot