At his trial, Benjamin Mendy described as “serial rapist” by the prosecutor

by time news

French football player Benjamin Mendy, accused of seven rapes, was called a “serial rapist” by the prosecutor on Thursday during his trial in Chester, in the north of England.

The 28-year-old French defender, suspended for more than a year by Manchester City, has been on trial since early August, accused of seven rapes, an attempted rape and a sexual assault. The facts allegedly took place between October 2018 and August 2021 at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire. He faces life imprisonment. The first months of this trial were devoted to the prosecution, which presented Benjamin Mendy as a “predator” who abused “vulnerable, terrified and isolated” victims.

In early November, the accused denied having been “a danger to women”. He said he only had consensual sex. Thursday was prosecutor Timothy Kray’s turn to speak. The footballer, he described, lured young women to his parties into “toxic and dangerous” situations.

He spoke of “the constantly changing cast of young women” before calling Benjamin Mendy a “serial rapist”, a “predator” during this period when he knew glory with his club. “Fame is a very good cover to hide the dark side of one’s life,” prosecutor Kray continued.

Winner of the World Cup with the France team in 2018 in Russia, where he was a substitute, Benjamin Mendy spent more than four months in pre-trial detention, from August 2021 to last January. He was then placed under judicial supervision pending trial. Trained in Le Havre, revealed in Marseille and spent a season with Monaco, Benjamin Mendy had become for a time the most expensive defender in history when the Citizens had spent 52 million pounds in 2017 (about 61.4 million euros in current course) to secure his services.

He is judged alongside another man, Louis Saha Matturie – unrelated to former footballer Louis Saha -, prosecuted on his side for six rapes and three sexual assaults. They both pleaded not guilty.

You may also like

Leave a Comment