Mendy, off to rape trial. The accusation: “A sexual predator”

The trial of Benjamin Mendy, the Manchester City talent on which eight charges of rape, attempted rape and sexual assault, have begun this morning at Chester Crown Court in the north-west of England.

The accusation

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According to the indictment, the 28-year-old French defender, immediately suspended by the City and now free on bail, acted as a “predator” unable to “take no for an answer”. The lawyer Timothy Cray, at the opening of the trial, addressed the jury as follows: “The case is simple. It has little to do with football, but it is another chapter of a very old story: men who rape and sexually assault women, because they think they are powerful and because they think they can get away with it. ” The reference is to alleged abuses against seven young women between October 2018 and August last year. Mendy, who is on trial with former footballer Louis Saha Matturie, has always denied any responsibility.

“Predator”

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According to Cray, one of the City defender’s duties was to “find young women and create situations in which they could be raped and sexually assaulted. The acts the defendants committed together show indifference and insensitivity to the women they pursued. mind, and this could not be clearer, the flow of women they brought home existed solely to persecute them for sexual purposes “, adding that the defendants turned” into predators ready to commit serious sexual offenses “and stressing that” they would not accept no for an answer “. The testimonies of 13 women will be heard in the trial.