A woman has described how she thought about screaming when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy, but didn’t because he was in “his own territory”.
As the trial of the 28-year-old footballer continued, Chester Crown Court was shown a recorded interview with the woman, who is the first of seven to give evidence against him.
In the clip, the 32-year-old told a police officer how Mendy, wearing just his boxer shorts, walked into an en-suite bathroom in his house while she was naked in the shower after she stayed the night with one of his friends.
During the alleged incident in October 2018, the woman, who has not been identified, said she saw him “hold himself in his private area”.
“He walked in and, out of shock, I said ‘you need to leave’,” she explained.
The woman said she managed to wrap a towel around herself and grab some underwear, but Mendy snatched it off her.
“He just did not want me to have clothes… he kept obstructing me,” she added. “I kept pushing him away, he kept grabbing me back.”
The woman continued to say he then “sat on the bed” and put her “on top of him” before taking off his boxer shorts and pulling her towards him.
She described how she was desperately trying to cling on to her towel, saying: “I just kept trying to wriggle out.
“He got very close, but I pushed him away as much as I could.”
She told the officer that she kept thinking “shall I scream” but thought “there’s no point as he’s in his own territory”.
Asked how she felt during the alleged attack, the woman said: “Out of control. I was not in a familiar place to me, I was in a different territory, it was his, he was surrounded by all his friends and I had no one else there.
“I kept saying stop and no, but that wasn’t heard.”
‘I’m going to kidnap you’
The woman explained how she had met Mendy in a club in Barcelona a year before the alleged incident took place, but had been much more interested in his friend.
The friend, who was part of the footballers “entourage”, was the one who invited her to Manchester in October 2018, where they met at Mendy’s house in Cheshire, she added.
Once she arrived, they went to a club, where champagne was ordered, before moving onto a second venue where she was with Mendy’s friend when the footballer approached her.
“At one point he came up to me and said, ‘When’s he not looking, I’m going to kidnap you’,” the woman said.
“I thought he was joking.”
What crimes are Mendy and his friend accused of?
Mendy denies eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault.
He is alleged to have committed the crimes against seven women between October 2018 and August 2021.
The French player was suspended by Manchester City when he was charged a year ago.
Prosecutors have told the jury that Mendy is a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”.
Mendy’s co-accused, Louis Saha Matturie, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight young women.
Prosecutors have told jurors the 41-year-old was Mendy’s friend and fixer, with one of his jobs being to “find young women and create situations” where they “could be raped and sexually assaulted”.
‘The Spinney’
The jury heard that central to the case is Mendy’s home, The Spinney, described as an isolated mansion, in Mottram St Andrew in rural Cheshire.
Prosecutors claim there were five dates in the timeframe when nine young women arrived at the footballer’s home and made complaints of rape and/or sexual assault against Mendy and Saha Matturie afterwards.
There are also four separate complaints against Saha Matturie involving allegations away from Mendy’s house, in Manchester and Sheffield.
The jury has heard that Mendy and Saha Matturie say in “broad terms” that all the women consented to sex, willingly, with only a couple of allegations where there is a denial that anything sexual happened.
The trial is set to continue on Thursday morning.
