Manchester City star Benjamin Mendy raped a teenager as he held her hands behind her back and told her: ‘Don’t move, don’t move’, a court heard.
The alleged victim, who was 19 at the time, claimed she was attacked in July last year after a pool party at the Manchester City defender’s £4.8 million home in Prestbury, Cheshire.
A jury at Chester Crown Court watched a video interview the alleged victim gave to police in September last year in which she said she and a friend had been drinking at a Manchester nightclub before going back to Mendy’s home, The Spinney.
She said she had been drinking vodka, tequila and champagne at the club before going back to the house to continue the party in the pool where she said she was ‘eight out of ten’ drunk.
The woman said: ‘I was quite drunk by this point. I remember being in the pool with boys we had not met before. Everyone was in the pool but I don’t remember leaving the pool room.
‘Then I remember I was in the living room with Ben. My first memory was I was on a sofa and Ben was behind me.
‘He had hold of both my hands behind me and he was having sex with me and saying “don’t move, don’t move”. He said it three or four times.
‘I was laid on my front and I was trying to move away. I remember I could not get my hands in front of me.
‘I was a bit scared and I remember feeling uncomfortable. I was wanting to get up and not be in that situation. I could feel him inside of me and his hands holding on to me – quite strong.’
Mendy, and his co-accused friend and fixer Louis Saha Matturie, 41, both deny the charges and have said any sex had been consensual.
The witness said the next thing she remembered was waking up in bed with Mendy next to her.
She said: ‘I remember waking up and seeing him walk out of the room, we did not say anything to each other. I do not think he knew I was awake yet.’
The woman said that she went to look for the jogging bottoms she had been wearing and Mendy’s friend and alleged fixer Matturie said they were in Mendy’s trophy room.
She said: ‘I was quite shocked because I do not remember taking them off and I do not remember being in the trophy room.’
The witness said that she had met Mendy before at parties in Matturie’s flat in Salford.
She said: ‘I knew he played football for Manchester City and that he was French because Saha Matturie was French as well.’
The witness said that she had come forward to police after a friend revealed her allegations of rape against Mendy by saying: ‘I became one of the 97 percent.’
She said this referred to the percentage of women who had been raped or sexually assaulted.
The court heard that the police told her that two other men at the party claimed that they had had sex with her that night.
The witness said: ‘I was quite shocked when they said that. It would not have been a choice that I would have made. I did not know them that well or had relationships with them.’
The jury has been told that a forensic examination of her underwear recovered from the trophy room contained Matturie’s DNA which led to Matturie being charged with her rape as well as Mendy.
In a second interview, the woman claimed that she was raped by Matturie a second time just over a week later after going to a party at the Salford flat.
She said that people at the party had suggested getting ‘balloons’, which the jury was told were for inhaling nitrous oxide.
The woman said she and Matturie went to another apartment to get some balloons. They went into a bedroom and Matturie suggested having ‘a hit’.
She said:’ As I was doing a hit, it made me feel light headed, dizzy, and unstable.
‘He pulled my dress up and continued to touch me and have sex with me. I did not really say anything and he did not say anything afterwards, either.’
The witness said that the following night she had gone back to Mendy’s house to join a friend who was having dinner there and Saha Matturie had sexually assaulted her on a sofa by grabbing her bottom.
The woman said that weeks later she phoned Matturie just before Mendy was arrested by Cheshire police to tell him that she did not want any more to do with him.
She said: ‘I told him I had heard things about other girls and he said that girls just do it to get money because of who Ben is and they sleep with him.
‘I said I did not think girls would make things up and I said we would not carry on seeing him. He started to cry and said girls always do this to try to make them look bad.
‘I said that we did not feel comfortable anymore and we were not going to put ourselves in that position any more around him and Ben.’
Mendy, 28, denies eight counts of rape, one attempted rape, and four sexual assaults. Matturie, 41, from Eccles, Greater Manchester also denies eight rape and four sexual assaults.
The trial continues.
