Benjamin Mendyfacing seven counts of rapespoke for the first time in his defense during his trial in the UK on Monday, denying non-consensual sex and saying the women “approached him”.
The 28-year-old French defender, suspended for more than a year by City of Manchesterhas been on trial since early August in Chester, in the north of England, where he is accused of seven counts of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault.
The incidents allegedly took place between October 2018 and August 2021 at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire. He faces life in prison.
The first months of this lengthy trial focused on the prosecution, which portrayed Benjamin Mendy as a “predator” who preyed on “vulnerable, fearful and isolated” victims.
Since Monday, now is the defense to speak. Benjamin Mendy, dressed in a navy blue suit and white shirt, spoke for the first time to defend himself, taking questions from his lawyer.
said Mendi
He said that because of his status as a footballer, women “approach (him)”.
If he says “I like to sleep with a lot of women”, he rejects non-consensual sex, believing that “if they (women) want to have sex and I want to have sex, everything is fine”.
But if a woman says “no”, Benjamin Mendy says he “accepts it and stops”.
Winner of the 2018 World Cup with the French national team, where he was a substitute, Benjamin Mendy spent more than four months, from August 2021 to January 2022, in preventive detention.
Released in early January, he was placed under judicial supervision pending trial.
Trained in Le Havre, revealed in Marseille and spent a season in 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 current prices) to acquire their service.
He was tried along with another man, Louis Saha Matturie -no relation to the former soccer player Louis Saha-, who was prosecuted for his part for six rapes and three sexual assaults.
They both pleaded not guilty.
Source: La Verdad
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