TRIAL The prosecutor referred during the trial to “the constantly changing cast of young women” before calling the player a “predator” during this period at Manchester City
Benjamin Mendy is charged with seven rapes, one attempted rape and one sexual assault. — AFP
French football player Benjamin Mendy, accused of seven rapes, was qualified Thursday of “serial rapist” by the prosecutor, during his trial at Chester, in the north of England. Aged 28, the French defender, suspended for more than a year by Manchester City, is judged since early August, charged with seven rapes, one attempted rape and one sexual assault.
The facts allegedly took place between October 2018 and August 2021 at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire. He risks prison. life.
The first months of this trial were difficult. dedicated to the prosecution, which presented Benjamin Mendy as a “predator” having abused of “vulnerable, terrified and isolated” victims. In early November, the accused denied having been “a danger to women” He assured having had only consensual sex.
“Toxic and dangerous”situations
On Thursday, it was prosecutor Timothy Kray’s turn to speak. The footballer, he described, lured young women to his parties into “toxic and dangerous” situations. He mentioned “the ever-changing cast of young women” before calling Benjamin Mendy a “serial rapist”, a “predator” during this period when he knew glory with his club. “Celebrity; is a very good cover to hide the side. obscure in his life,” prosecutor Kray continued.
Winner of the World Cup with the France team in 2018 in Russia, where; he was a substitute, Benjamin Mendy passed; more than four months in pre-trial detention, from August 2021 to last January. It has been placed then under judicial control pending his trial.
He is judged at the side of another man, Louis Saha Matturie – unrelated to former footballer Louis Saha –, sued on his side; for six rapes and three sexual assaults. They both pleaded; not guilty.