New testimonies and gutted messages: the trial of Benjamin Mendy continues

At the court of Chester, in the United Kingdom, the trial of French footballer Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie, close to the player, continues. Faced with the speeches of two new alleged victims, the defense of the football player – who denies all the charges against him – unfolds and reveals the way in which the speech of the victims of sexual violence is treated.

Two further testimonies of sexual assault

This Tuesday, August 23, the court heard the testimony of the third alleged victim. The facts of sexual violence that she recounts echo previous speeches: they allegedly took place in 2021, at Mendy’s home. During a party organized by him, she says that she would touch her vulva without her consent as she moved around the house. He then allegedly made several sexual gestures and comments about her.

The next day, a fourth victim explains his account of the facts. Also during an evening in her main residence, during the summer of 2021, she reports that the footballer would have isolated her from the rest of the guests before leaving.insist she have sex with him. She describes a “ debate with a brick wall “ : he would have explained to him for many reasons his refusal to sleep with him, to which he would have responded with pressure (in particular that no one would have spoken to him if he had refused his advances, the Internet user), before raping her. “ I couldn’t do anything else “He said during his testimony. According to the prosecutor, Mendy raped two other women that night.

Benjamin Mendy’s defense is organized

Since 2019 in the UK, investigators have been able to ask rape victims to access data from their phones, and therefore from their searches and exchanges. A measure denounced by some feminist associations at the time of its adoption, fearing that it would dissuade women from filing a complaint, for fear of being discredited because of some of their messages.

In Chester Court, these problems are visible. Across the Channel, in fact, during the criminal trials, it is a jury that determines whether the accused is guilty or not. The plaintiffs are heard as witnesses and not as civil parties, and therefore are not represented by lawyers. However, they are subject to the second opinion of the defender.

In the case of Mendy, represented by Eleanor Laws, the telephone numbers of the victims come out very often in interrogations. Thus, one of the victims is questioned about a message she allegedly sent to a friend before going to Benjamin Mendy, mentioning “taking a footballer for the winter”. Another is questioned about her interactions with other alleged victims.

The fourth victim, meanwhile, was particularly questioned about a Google search that he would have carried out from his phone: before filing a complaint, he would have tried to find, through the search engine, ” How much is Benjamin Mendy worth? “In French, how much is Benjamin Mendy” worth “, or how much is his fortune estimated. After doing this research before her first steps to testify, she was then questioned about a possible desire for economic compensation.

There are many questions that arise during a trial whose purpose is to determine the guilt of a defendant, who benefits from the presumption of innocence. But they also testify to the significance, in our patriarchal societies, of the stereotype of the “venal” woman motivated by money and the suspicion of a conspiracy to “careers in ruins”. Many prejudices that weigh on the victims of rape, and on the way in which they are treated by the media and the justice system.

Photo credit: Sky Sport News / YouTube screenshot