After five months of trial, French footballer Benjamin Mendy was found not guilty on Friday January 13 of six rapes and a sexual assault by a popular jury in Chester (north of England) in the United Kingdom. But the latter did not reach a verdict on two other charges, one for rape and the other for attempted rape.
Benjamin Mendy will thus be retried from June 26 for these charges, announced Judge Steven Everett.
The French international defender, suspended for more than a year by his club, Manchester City, appeared since the beginning of August. Accused of seven rapes, an attempted rape and a sexual assault, he risked life imprisonment. After fourteen days of deliberation, the jury acquitted him of six rapes and one sexual assault against four women.
Four months in pre-trial detention
His co-accused, Louis Saha Matturie (unrelated to former footballer Louis Saha), presented as his tout, was found not guilty of three rape charges and the jury did not reach a verdict on three other rape charges. and three of sexual assault.
At the hearing, the prosecution presented Benjamin Mendy as a “predator” having abused victims “vulnerable, terrified and isolated”. The footballer, for his part, denied having been “a danger for women”and assured that he had only had consensual sex.
Winner, as a substitute, of the 2018 World Cup with the France team, Benjamin Mendy was imprisoned at the end of August 2021 and spent more than four months in pre-trial detention. Released in early January 2022, he was placed under judicial supervision pending trial.
Trained in Le Havre, revealed in Marseille and spent a season with Monaco, Benjamin Mendy became the most expensive defender in history in 2017 when the Citizens paid 52 million pounds (about 61.4 million euros at the current price). ) to secure his services.