Crime

MANCHESTER City’s Benjamin Mendy told police he was “shocked” at being arrested for rape, a court heard.Mendy, 28, was interviewed by police multiple times in relation to a number of rape and sexual assault allegations, Chester Crown Court was told.
Benjamin Mendy arrives at Chester Crown Court todayCredit: Andy Kelvin / Kelvinmedia
The Manchester City player’s ongoing trial sees him charged along with his co accused Louis Saha Matturie with multiple rapes and sex assaultsCredit: Andy Kelvin / Kelvinmedia
The Premier League footballer and his friend and ‘fixer’ Louis Saha Matturie, 41, deny all charges at their trial, now in its 12th week.
The footballer gave a number of prepared statements to detectives followed by “no comment” interviews on instruction by his solicitor, the court heard.
Timothy Cray KC, prosecuting, read the prepared statement Mendy gave in relation to the first of the young women he is alleged to have raped.
The woman, aged 24, claims Mendy raped her three times at his home in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, in October 2020.
Mendy said in the statement he had been out for a few drinks to a bar with Matturie and others in Alderley Edge near his home and met some girls who were invited back to his house.
While there he saw one girl using her phone, which visitors had been instructed not to do, to video his home.
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Mendy told police: “I asked her to delete the video. She gave me her phone and I deleted it.
“As I did so a photo of her with no clothes on came up on screen. She said she had more photos of her like that and we agreed to go upstairs to my bedroom so she could show me more.”
In his bedroom Mendy said she showed him more naked photos and took her top off and they started kissing.
Mendy said the woman gave him oral sex and agreed they would “play around” but she did not want to go any further.
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Later she left with another girl and he ended up having sex with one of the 24-year-old’s friends from the bar, who stayed the night in his bed.
He told detectives: “I’m shocked to be accused of rape and false imprisonment. All sexual activity between me and her was completely consensual.
“I did nothing to prevent her from leaving.”
Mendy gave a further three prepared statements to police in relation to separate women he had allegedly raped where he told detectives the sex was consensual.
He denies seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women.
Matturie, of Salford, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven young women.
Both men say if any sex did take place with women or girls it was consensual.
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None of the women involved, as sexual assault complainants, can be identified.
The trial was adjourned until Friday morning. More

A FRIEND of Premier League footballer Benjamin Mendy raped a teenage girl after a first date at Nando’s, a court has been told.Louis Saha Matturie told the then-17-year-old he was a football agent and, after the meal, took her to his flat, exposed himself and asked if he had the “biggest d***” she had seen, Chester Crown Court heard.
Louis Saha Matturie at Chester Crown Court where he is charged with multiple rapes and sexual assaultsCredit: Andy Kelvin / Kelvinmedia
Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy also faces several chargesCredit: Andy Kelvin / Kelvinmedia
Manchester City defender Mendy, 28, and his pal and “fixer” Matturie, 41, deny a series of rapes and sexual assaults.
The jury watched a police interview of the last of 13 complainants, who told officers about the alleged rape between July 22 and August 30, 2012.
She said she saw Matturie while clubbing in Manchester, swapped numbers with him and arranged a date at the chicken restaurant.
She said he later drove the pair to his south Manchester flat, where they sat on a bed and kissed before he took his penis out.
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“He just had it out, fully exposed,” she said.
“I just remember saying, ‘No. I don’t want to have sex.’
“I wasn’t really feeling it. I didn’t really fancy him.
“I just remember him wanting to have sex. I felt like I had to have sex with him because he had it out.
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“I just thought, ‘It’s got to this stage now.’ I felt obliged.
“I remember him saying, ‘Is this the biggest d*** you have ever seen?’
“And I remember looking at him and saying, ‘No.’
“Like, I’m disgusted and numb. Repulsed.”
The woman said she went to the toilet, cried and texted her mum to say she would be back soon.
Matturie later drove her home.
After news of Mendy and Matturie’s arrest last August, the woman said a friend sent an article about it to a group chat on her phone.
She told officers: “I thought, ‘Oh, my God!’ I felt sick and knew that I needed to say what I know.
“I just replied and said, ‘I went on a date with him once.'”
‘I FELT SICK’
Earlier, the court heard from a friend of another woman, 18 at the time, who alleges Matturie sexually assaulted her at the home of a footballer in Sheffield in 2016.
She said Matturie was the organiser of parties in Manchester, sometimes involving footballers, and contacted young women through Snapchat and Instagram.
She said there would be “no more” than five men at the events, with 10 or 15 girls invited and around 10 parties held during lockdown at a flat near Manchester city centre.
After Mendy’s arrest, she said Matturie rang her.
She told the jury: “He said, ‘Don’t believe what’s in the newspapers. These are girls, not women’ – something along those lines – and he’s told his boys to keep their heads down.”
Prosecutors say Mendy is a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”, while Matturie allegedly had the job of finding young women for sex.
Mendy, of Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, denies seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women.
Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven young women.
Both men say if any sex did take place with women or girls it was consensual.
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None of the women involved, as sexual assault complainants, can legally be identified.
The trial was adjourned until next Monday morning. More