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Accused of eight rapes, one attempted rape and sexual assault, French footballer Benjamin Mendy is on trial from Wednesday in Chester for more than three months. At the beginning of January, he was placed under judicial supervision pending his trial.
The trial of world football champion Benjamin Mendy, accused of eight rapes, an attempted rape and a sexual assault, opens on Wednesday August 10 in Chester in the north-west of England.
The 28-year-old French footballer, suspended for a year by Manchester City, is accused by seven women and denies the ten charges which relate to facts which allegedly took place between October 2018 and August 2021 at his home in Prestbury, in Cheshire.
He is on trial alongside another man, Louis Saha Matturie – unrelated to former footballer Louis Saha -, prosecuted for eight rapes and four sexual assaults on eight women between July 2012 and August 2021. The latter has also pleaded not guilty.
Their trial was originally scheduled to open on July 25 but was postponed for two weeks. It is scheduled to last fifteen weeks, according to the court.
The first days of this long-term trial must be devoted to choosing the jurors and organizing the hearings.
Benjamin Mendy’s trial opens two days after that of Welshman and former Manchester United star Ryan Giggs, 48, accused of assaulting his girlfriend.
A hope of French football
Winner of the 2018 World Cup with the France team, Benjamin Mendy left the lawns for almost a year for the dock and the prison cells of Liverpool and Manchester, where he spent more than four months , from August 2021 to January 2022, in pre-trial detention. Released in early January, he was placed under judicial supervision pending trial.
Mendy has not played a single football match since August 15, 2021 with his Manchester City club, which suspended him when the case started.
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.
When he arrived at City, he was considered one of the great French and world prospects at left-back. But his career has been hampered for four years by injuries and he has never really justified the hopes placed in him.
With AFP