Mendy ‘rape victim’ cries as star’s lawyer asks ‘why didn’t you leave?’

A woman who claims Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy raped her broke down crying in court when his barrister asked why did she not try to leave.

The 28-year-old French International allegedly lured the woman into his bedroom by taking her phone and looking through naked pictures of her. Chester Crown Court saw a police interview with the alleged victim in which she claims he used his fingerprint to open the bedroom door.

She said she followed him in, asking for her phone back and the door shut behind her. The woman claimed she repeatedly told Mendy she did not want to have sex with him during the incident in October 2020 but said he told her: “Well the doors locked anyway” and told her to strip down to her underwear.

A court drawing of Louis Saha Matturie and Benjamin Mendy
Jurors previously heard Mendy had “panic room” style locks on some of the rooms in his home, including his bedroom. The woman, who is the second to give evidence in the trial, was asked questions by Mendy’s barrister Eleanor Laws QC this afternoon.

It was suggested by Ms Laws that the door was not locked and the alleged victim was asked why she did not try to leave the room. The woman said: “He already told me I wouldn’t be able to get out at this point. I didn’t think I should make a scene because that’s when I realised…”

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The witness then began to cry and said: “I was in a room with someone that I don’t know and I wasn’t able to get out so I felt that was my only choice.”

She claims he then raped her three times before telling her: ”It’s fine, I have had sex with 10,000 women” and allegedly adding: “it’s a privilege”.

Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy arrives at Chester Crown Court where he is accused of eight counts of rape, one count of sexual assault and one count of attempted rape, relating to seven young women
When Ms Laws suggested to the woman Mendy had not said he had slept with 10,000 women, the alleged victim said: “I’m absolutely sure he did, it’s in high definition in my mind. It’s the most traumatising thing that’s ever happened to me.”

And when asked why she did not tell friends about the alleged rape until the next day, the woman said: “Because of the shock. It’s such a shock that you know, even sitting here now saying it, it is really difficult and that’s been two years. So at the time I didn’t have the vocabulary.

“I did want to tell my mum but then I remember just thinking I shouldn’t because my mum will be upset and stressed. I just wanted to put it behind me and I thought I could, so I was trying to act as normal.”

This morning the court heard Mendy and the woman had been at a bar where a then-Manchester United player Jesse Lingard was also present. There is nothing to suggest Lingard was involved.

Mendy and the woman then went back to Mendy’s house in Mottram St Andrew, rural Cheshire, the court heard. After they went into his bedroom, Mendy allegedly told her to take her clothes off, telling her: “If you just take your clothes off, I just want to have a look at you and I won’t touch you but I just want to see what you look like.”

She told police: “He threw my phone on the bed so then I bent over to get it off the bed and he had walked round the bed and come behind me and pushed me onto the bed so I was on all fours.”

She later added in the police interview played to the jury: “He said ‘I have had sex with 10,000 women as well but don’t tell anyone’ and ‘It would be a privilege for me to go over and have that done every night by him’.”

The two teenagers and the prosecutor alleged they fell asleep before waking up to find Mendy was raping them
Also on trial is Mendy’s friend and “fixer” Louis Saha Matturie, 41, who allegedly helped find young women for Mendy and was present at parties where women claim they were raped.

Saha, of Eccles, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault against eight different women – two of whom Mendy is also accused of raping.

The alleged victim said she woke up the next day and had a Snapchat message she believed to be from Mendy and another from Saha, who the woman described as Mendy’s ‘manager guy’. She said: “I think when he’s had my phone he’s added the Snapchat for him and for the manager guy.

“So I woke up the next day and at 12pm I had a message from Ben on Snapchat. And I didn’t open it and I’m thinking ‘How the f*** have I got him on here because I’ve not added him?’.”

She said she was able to “slide” the message so she could read it without him seeing it had been read, and he had sent her “loads of question marks”. The woman said she also received a message, alleged to be from Saha, that said: “Are you ok? Please can you call me so we can discuss”.

A dejected Benjamin Mendy of Manchester City during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Leicester City in 2020
She added: “I thought ‘What the f***’, so I took a screenshot but I didn’t take a screenshot of the message itself because it would tell them and I didn’t want them to see I’d seen them. And then I blocked them.” She said she believed the account to be Mendy’s as it had a profile picture of him and there was a picture of him on the ‘story’ function.

Mendy denies eight counts of rape against five women and one count of attempted rape against another woman. He also denies one count of sexual assault on a different woman. The offences are alleged to have taken place on five different occasions at his “isolated” home in Cheshire between October 2018 and August last year.