Benjamin Mendy, a former Manchester City player, was found not guilty of raping one woman and trying to rape another.
The 28-year-old was charged with assaulting a 24-year-old lady in October 2020 at his £4 million property in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire.
Another woman, age 29, who claimed he had previously assaulted her at his home two years prior, was also accused of being attempted raped by Mr. Mendy.
It follows a trial in January where he was exonerated of six rape charges.
After a three-week trial at Chester Crown Court, the France international sobbed as the jury’s not-guilty findings were announced.
For around three hours and fifteen minutes, the jury of six men and six women pondered before reaching a verdict.
1. Benjamin Mendy, 28 was accused of seven counts of rape against four women, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against another two women. The offences are alleged to have taken place at his Cheshire mansion between October 2018 and August last year and relate to six women. Benjamin Mendy does not dispute that he had sex with the women, he only insists that any sex that happened was consensual.
2. Phone records made available to the jury showed that some of the accusers had Googled “BENJAMIN MENDY NET WORTH” before coming forward to accuse him of rape.
3. On the night of August 2021, the day of one of the alleged rape cases, the woman involved had sex twice with Benjamin Mendy. After that, she also had sex twice with Louis Saha before taking an interest in Jack Grealish. All the sexual activity happened in the same night at Benjamin Mendy’s mansion.
4. After the night of sex at Benjamin Mendy’s mansion, One of the women who claimed to be raped sent an SMS to some of her friends where she started that she has just had the “best night of her entire life” while the accuser from 2018 called her friends after the sexual activity to brag about having hit a gold mine.
4. After the nights of the alleged rapes, CCTV from Benjamin Mendy’s home showed that the accusers continued to frequently visit the mansion. Also, CCTV footage from the VIP section of some Manchester nightclubs showed that the women continued to regularly party with the accused men after the alleged rape incident.
Jurors were also shown footage of the woman dancing near to Mr Mendy in a nightclub just hours after the alleged rape. The video also showed the woman with her arms around Mr Mendy’s neck. The same woman said she was raped by Mr Mendy three times and was left bleeding from the attack in October 2020. She added the “hardest thing that makes me upset is how many times I said no”.
5. Several weeks into the trial, the judge ordered the jury to find both Mendy and Matturie not guilty of raping the 19-year-old woman, after a CCTV footage from Louis Saha’s apartment emerged showing her having “enthusiastic and obviously consensual sex” with Louis Saha. Mendy’s defence team used this dropped charge to plant doubt in the jury’s mind, suggesting that if one woman had lied, could the others not also have made up their allegations?
6. Evidence made available in court showed that the women who claimed that they were raped belonged to a feminist WhatsApp group where they shared strategy on how to perfect their falsehood and destroy the men involved.
7. The English premier league board suspended Benjamin Mendy in 2021 when the accusations were formally made to the police. Worthy of note is that Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola publicly stood by Benjamin Mendy and supported him throughout his ordeal. Benjamin Mendy is now free but without a club after his Man City contract expired at the end of June. He played his last game for the Premier League champions in August 2021 and had already won 4 premier league titles.
8. While Benjamin Mendy was on trial, his club Manchester City won the champions league, the premier league and the FA Cup.
By virtue of his suspension by the English FA, Benjamin Mendy has also lost out on these coveted medals.
9. Till date, the English media has refused to publicly disclose the identity of the females who accused Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha of rape.
10. Benjamin Mendy stated that his time in jail had given him time and reason to see life differently and apply more caution while relating with women.
