Premier League footballer Benjamin Mendy is a “predator” who raped ladies in his “remoted” Cheshire mansion and thought they had been “issues for use for intercourse and thrown to 1 facet”, a court docket heard.
endy (28) is accused of eight counts of rape, one depend of tried rape, and one depend of sexual assault.
In a single incident, Mendy allegedly took the sufferer’s cellphone from her and began taking a look at intimate photos she saved on her cellphone. When she tried to get it again, he informed her: “I’ll offer you your cellphone again if you happen to take your garments off,” the court docket was informed.
The girl stripped to her underwear and went to seize her cellphone when Mendy got here up behind her and raped her thrice regardless of the lady’s protests, the prosecution alleged.
On one other event in Mendy’s Cheshire mansion, a lady needed to clench her knees collectively to cease him from raping her, the court docket was informed.
The Manchester Metropolis footballer is co-accused with Louis Saha Matturie, referred to in court docket as a “fixer who discovered younger ladies for Mendy”.
Matturie (40) is accused of eight counts of rape and 4 counts of sexual assault.
Each males deny the costs towards them.
One girl, who stayed over at Mendy’s home after a pool celebration, was allegedly woken from sleep by him raping her. When her underwear was forensically examined, DNA was discovered from each Mendy and Saha Matturie – regardless of the lady having no reminiscence of getting intercourse with Saha Matturie.
Prosecution lawyer Timothy Cray QC informed Chester Crown Court docket that each defendants thought “the sentiments and feelings of their victims counted for nothing”.
“To them, these ladies had been disposable, issues for use for intercourse, thrown to 1 facet,” Mr Cray added.
He informed the court docket that the trial would hear from 13 completely different ladies who accuse Mendy and Saha Matturie of rape or sexual assault.
Nearly all of the alleged crimes occurred at Mendy’s mansion in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, from October 2019 to August 2021.
The court docket heard that the placement and design of the home helped Mendy to isolate the ladies and make them extra susceptible to his advances.
“It was remoted,” Mr Cray mentioned. “About 17 miles south of the centre of Manchester. In case you turned up and also you’ve by no means been there, with the large outdated gates locked behind you, you might nicely have felt that you simply had been susceptible.”
As soon as ladies arrived on the home, a few of them had their telephones taken off them, based on Mr Cray.
Different ladies had been taken to rooms that they believed had been locked, some had been drunk, and “there’s proof the defendants wished the ladies drunk”, Mr Cray continued.
Two ladies had been saved within the research and the master suite earlier than they had been allegedly raped by Mendy, the trial heard. Jurors had been proven a video of the doorways on these rooms and informed the locks may flip them into “panic rooms” if the home was burgled.
Due to the weird safety system, jurors had been proven how the rooms had two handles on every door. The doorways may solely be opened if each handles had been turned on the identical time, that means you might be trapped inside if you happen to solely pulled one deal with to attempt to get out.
Moreover, “the distinction of ages and wealth between the defendants and the ladies” made them susceptible, Mr Cray mentioned.
“The final perspective of the defendants was that any girl…as soon as that door closed behind her, nicely that girl was obtainable to intercourse.”
Mendy and Saha Matturie are “predators who had been ready to commit severe sexual offences” and who “wouldn’t take no for a solution”, the prosecution argued within the opening handle.
“They had been capable of construct up, create conditions, the place ‘No’ – to the ladies involved – didn’t even appear to be an choice,” the court docket heard.
The trial was additionally informed that one girl was assaulted when she arrived on the home to go to somebody apart from Mendy or Saha Matturie.
One other girl was 17 when the assault befell. To the defendants, the prosecution argued, it didn’t matter “whether or not the witness is kind of minding her personal enterprise in Mendy’s kitchen, or whether or not the lady was in apparent misery”.
Saha Matturie additionally allegedly “pretended to be another person” throughout intercourse, the court docket heard.
“The woman wakes up and it’s him having intercourse together with her, not the individual she thought was in mattress together with her,” Mr Cray detailed.
The accused pair believed that “all these ladies who turned as much as the handle had been obtainable to them for intercourse”, Mr Cray mentioned.
The trial continues.
