Benjamin Mendy’s trial in Chester court continued on Tuesday with the testimony of a third plaintiff. The young woman accuses the French footballer of sexual assault and recounted the incident in chilling detail. A friend of the first two alleged victims also testified about how they revealed the alleged incidents to her.
Open for almost two weeks, the trial of Benjamin Mendy had a new busy day on Tuesday with the testimony of a third alleged victim of French football. The young woman accuses the 2018 world champion of sexual assault during a party organized at her home in Prestbury in January 2021. As had already been the case for the first two complainants, the jurors viewed the recording filmed by the British police during their investigation.
In his testimony to the police, the alleged victim said he went to the home of the Manchester City defender after midnight with three friends. “Everyone was having a great time playing and drinking. At three in the morning I was walking to the island and he was coming back that way. He touched my vulva. I turned around to go to the bathroom thinking ‘ What just happened? ‘, thus confided the third plaintiff.
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The alleged victim does not understand Mendy’s behavior
Still shocked by the alleged incident at the time of her testimony to the authorities, the young woman also assured that she did not understand how the situation had degenerated so quickly with Benjamin Mendy since they had not spoken much together during the evening. . After asking to leave the room to go smoke in the toilet, the footballer would still make several inappropriate gestures and comments to him.
“He came to open the door and I entered the bathroom. We were face to face and he made a gesture to mimic cunnilingus, explained the alleged victim again. I do not understand where it is from. walked out because there had been little conversation. […] I was completely turned around, my friend arrived and I told her what had happened. She was just shocked, just like me. The conversation between him and me was minimal. I just showed up and that was it.”
A victim joke serves as Mendy’s lawyer’s counterattack
After the third plaintiff’s account, one of Benjamin Mendy’s attorneys conducted the cross-examination. Eleanor Laws thus asked questioned the supposed victim on the course of the facts and made him confirm all his remarks. Seeing the beginning of a flaw, the lawyer assured that Benjamin Mendy had brushed against the private parts of the young woman without touching her and that no witness could confirm the accusation against his client. During this exchange between Eleanor Laws and the footballer’s third accuser, the lawyer returned to a conversation between the alleged victim and one of her friends referring to an English tabloid.
“Do you remember telling your friend about a story you saw in the press saying that you could sell your story to the Daily Mail to tell this big party”, thus launched the defense lawyer. The complainant retorted by assuring that she was joking with her friend.
A confidante of two alleged victims moved to tears
After the moving testimony and cross-examination of the third alleged victim, the court in Chester heard the account of a friend of the second and third plaintiffs in this case. Hidden behind a curtain so as not to be stared at by the two co-accused, Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie (no connection with the ex-footballer), the witness told how her two friends had collected themselves from her after the incidents in Mendy’s villa.
She thus learned of the accusations of the second complainant in October 2020, a week after the alleged facts. For the third plaintiff, she became aware of the facts in February 2021. “She was upset when she told me. When she told me what had happened, I told her what had happened before ( to the second complainant)”, declared the witness before assuring that her friend had clearly named Benjamin Mendy as her alleged attacker. Throughout her testimony, the friend of the second and third alleged victims appeared very scarred and her eyes were filled with tears.
A new alleged rape investigated on Wednesday
Adjourned after the reading of a written statement written by a friend of the third potential victim, the trial of Benjamin Mendy will resume this Wednesday in Chester. The judge and members of the jury will hear from a fourth plaintiff who accuses Benjamin Mendy of rape.
Before this new hearing by the court, the French footballer has already faced three charges of rape by the same young woman as well as an attempted rape and a sexual assault by two other alleged victims. The trial of the Manchester City player and the France team is expected to stretch for almost three months.
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