It is a testimony that everyone was waiting for and which is likely to weigh heavily. On August 10, one of the most publicized trials of the year in England began in Chester and it concerns a French football player and not just any one. World champion in 2018 with the French team, Benjamin Mendy is a true star of his sport, evolving until last year in one of the best teams on the planet, Manchester City. Except that everything changed a year ago for the 28-year-old, who found himself charged with very serious facts.
In the end, Benjamin Mendy faces 8 charges for rape, an attempted rape and a sexual assault from 7 different women. Acts that he would have perpetrated with the help of an accomplice named Louis Saha Matturie (no connection with the footballer Louis Saha), also judged at the moment at his side. The first days of the trial, which opened on August 10, were devoted to the former footballer, in order to better understand his personality or to better understand the modus operandi that the two men would have put in place to attract young women and abuse them.
A first sentence that appeals to the young woman
Yesterday was a very important day that took place in Chester court, since for the first time, the jurors were able to hear the testimony of a complainant through her statement to the police and retransmitted on video in the room. . Aged 29, the one we nicknamed “Woman One” accuses Benjamin Mendy of attempted rape at a party that allegedly took place in October 2018. During the evening, when he seems to be accompanied by another woman, the footballer turns to the young woman and would have said to him: “When he (note, Diacko Fofana, a friend of Benjamin Mendy) has his back turned, I will kidnap you”.
The complainant will then spend the night in the world champion’s mansion with Diacko Fofana, but when she wakes up the next day, she decides to go take a shower, and that’s when Benjamin Mendy would have slipped . The latter would have burst into the bathroom before telling her that he “want to see her naked”. Very insistent, the footballer would even have “showed his penis” before making her sit down “on a bed and try to rape her”.
You don’t have to be afraid… I just want to feel you, I’m not going to do anything to you
Benjamin Mendy would then have tried to obtain the favors of the young woman by insisting. “You don’t have to be afraid… I just want to feel you, I’m not going to do anything to you”, he would have told her before pressing his penis against the complainant’s vagina. An endless moment for her which would have lasted about twenty minutes according to his words. A trying story for the young woman, who still does not understand the actions of the fallen footballer. “I didn’t understand what was going on. He had such a pretty girl with him the night before. She was so adorable. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I was lost”she concludes.
Benjamin Mendy remains presumed innocent of the charges against him until the final judgment.