Benjamin Mendy’s door locking system is explained by the police
The jury can now see a short video taken by a police officer showing Mr Mendy’s door locking system.
Short break at the Court
This should take a few minutes.
“He forced me to have sex”
Also in a statement read by the prosecutor, it is now up to the mother of the second complainant to speak. The latter saw her daughter the day after the evening at Benjamin Mendy’s described her as “pale” and who was “not herself”. When she got home, she got straight into the shower.
“She got ready for work and left as usual. When I learned something is when [la deuxième plaignante] called me. She said ‘don’t put my underwear in the machine’. I didn’t think anything at that time. [La deuxième plaignante] called me back and told me I had to go home. When I got home, she said she had something to tell me. She burst into tears and said she had gone to a party at a footballer’s house. She said: ‘He forced me to have sex’.”
The mother of the second complainant said her daughter told her that Benjamin Mendy had used her fingerprint to unlock the bedroom.
“[La deuxième plaignante] took off her clothes because she was scared. She said he threw her on the bed and she repeatedly said, ‘I don’t want that’. He had had sex with her and she fought to get him to withdraw.
He would then have told her that the second plaintiff could “come here every night if you let me do that”.
New testimony from a woman present at Benjamin Mendy on October 11, 2020
The court is now hearing testimony from another woman who visited Benjamin Mendy’s home on the night of October 11, 2020. This woman admitted to having slept with Benjamin Mendy and another man who was at his home that night .
While she was in bed with the other man, Benjamin Mendy came into the bedroom. “We went to his room and he said, ‘tell me the truth, have you slept with my friend?’ to which I replied ‘yes’. I spent the night in the room of Benjamin Mendy I woke up the next morning in his bed I texted my friend saying the internet wasn’t working I didn’t know anything was wrong at the time. “
When the woman arrived home, she confided to her friend that she had slept with both Benjamin Mendy and another man. It was then that she learned “what had happened” to the second complainant.
“[La deuxième plaignante] said Mendy took her phone and locked her in her room. She recalled that he told her she could only get her phone back if she took her clothes off.”
“Everyone said he forced her”
The day after the evening at Benjamin Mendy, the second complainant and her friend exchanged after her day’s work.
“Everyone was saying he forced her. I said that was the wrong word. I said, ‘we should say he raped her.’ [La deuxième plaignante] said she followed Benjamin Mendy to retrieve his phone. She explained that once inside, she couldn’t get out. She said he told her to undress. I thought she looked like she was raped. She repeatedly said, ‘no, I don’t want to’.”
“I put my phone in my bra because I didn’t want him to take it”
After they returned to Benjamin Mendy’s home, the friend of the second complainant said Louis Saha Matturie explained to them that they were not allowed to keep their phones. District Attorney Timothy Cray does the reading.
“I put my phone in my bra because I didn’t want him to take it. [Louis] Saha [Matturie] wanted us to get in the pool, but I didn’t want to. […] I started tidying up the pool because it was a state…I asked where it was (second complainer) but no one knew. We were in the kitchen when she appeared. Mendy also appeared, but I can’t remember who came first but they didn’t appear together at the same time. (The second complainant) wanted to leave. We had been in the house for about an hour.”
First reading of testimony
A statement from the friend of the second complainant is being read to the jury. On October 11, 2020, she had gone out with the second complainant to a bar in Alderly Edge, where they met Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie.
The jury has arrived
The jury has arrived in the courtroom and is to hear a number of joint statements read by the prosecution.
Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie arrive
The two co-accused settle in their cubicle.
The trial will resume
The start of the testimonies is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. French time, after the technical problems of the day before.
The summary of this Monday at the Mendy trial
The debates essentially revolved around the second complainant, with the testimony of the doctor who examined her then that of a friend present with her at the evening and whose account corroborates that given by the complainant last Thursday.
“Pale and scared, as if she had seen a ghost”: at the start of the third week of the trial of Benjamin Mendy, accused of eight rapes, a young woman, close to the second alleged victim, told the jury in what state she was found his friend. The report of the day of the Mendy trial to read here
Technical problem in the courtroom
The trial is adjourned until tomorrow (11:30 a.m. French time).
One hour break at Chester court
The debates will resume at 3 p.m. (French time)
It was the next day that the complainant recounted what she had suffered
She found herself in a room unable to get out, and Mendy asked her to take off her clothes in exchange for her phone. He then threw the device on the bed and when she wanted to retrieve it, he pinned her to the bed and tried to rape her.
“She looked like she saw a ghost”
As the second complainant did not return, after about twenty minutes, the young woman testifying went to look for her and found her upstairs. “She looked like she had seen a ghost”, “she was pale and scared.” The second plaintiff told her that they should leave now but did not give a reason.
A friend of the second complainant testifies
She confirms the complainant’s account, explaining that Mendy and Matturie joined them in a bar, paid them drinks, Mendy was flirting with another member of the group. Everyone then went to Benjamain Mendy’s mansion, which was “messy”, “as if there had already been parties before”. The young women had to give up their phone. She explains that she was next to her friend when Mendy wanted to retrieve her phone to, he explained, “make sure she hadn’t taken any pictures”, which the young woman denied. He then left with his phone and the young woman followed her to retrieve it.
The first testimonies begin
Kirsty Beattie is being heard at Chester Court. She’s a doctor at the Sexual Assault Referral Center in Manchester. It was she who collected the first testimony from the second complainant who testified on Friday.
She explains that the second complainant told her that she had gone out with friends to a bar before returning to a house. In this house, she confides that the second complainant told her that a man had confiscated her phone and had taken her upstairs.
The latter had reminded him that she followed this man into a bedroom to try to retrieve the phone, but that he then locked the door using a keypad. “She told me she was very scared inside because the door was locked,” adds the witness.
Kristy Beattie explains that the second plaintiff told her that she repeatedly told the man that she “didn’t want to have sex” and asked to leave the bedroom. She says the man then “touched her breast” and “laid her on the bed”.
The jury hears that the second plaintiff told the doctor she ‘felt pain’ but wasn’t sure he had penetrated her.
Dr Beattie told the jury that the second complainant was ‘quiet and in tears’ and appeared ‘in shock’ during the examination, which took place around 44 hours after the alleged rapes.
She says the woman said she had bleeding from her buttocks, but an examination revealed no obvious injuries in her anal or vaginal areas.
“This may be a common finding, so it was not possible to determine whether or not something happened,” Dr Beattie told the court.
Benjamin Mendy arrived at Chester Court
Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie have just arrived in court for a new day of hearing.
A third complainant heard on Monday
After the very heavy testimonies of the first two victims who accused Mendy of attempted rape and rape, place for the third victim who accuses Benjamin Mendy of sexual assault, during an evening at the home of the Manchester City player. As during the first testimony, the court will first attend his recorded statements, before the cross-examination, in the presence of the alleged victim.
Beginning of the second full week of the Mendy trial
The testimonies follow one another in the court of justice of Chester, in the north of England, where are judged Benjamin Mendy, 28, world champion 2018 with the French football team and player of Manchester City and one of his relatives, Louis Saha Matturie, 41 years old (no connection with footballer Louis Saha). Benjamin Mendy is accused of eight rapes, an attempted rape and a sexual assault. He pleaded not guilty to all ten counts.