Benjamin Mendy’s trial continued on Thursday with the testimony of a second victim, present in court to respond to cross-examination. The young woman accuses the French player of rape during a party in October 2020.

The video recording of his statement to the police was harrowing to hear, as was the cross-examination conducted by the defendant’s lawyer in court. This Thursday, Benjamin Mendy’s trial continued with the testimony of a second victim. She accuses the Manchester City player of having raped her during a party in October 2020.

His video of his testimony to the police was played in court. The complainant explains that she and friends met Mendy and others in a bar, in which she specifies having seen Jesse Lingard there, then at Manchester United. The complainant and her friends were then invited to the player’s home for a party. In the cross-examination, she will explain that it was the co-defendant Louis Saha Matturie who proposed to the groups of friends to come to the home of Benjamin Mendy.

Once there, the complainant explained that the Manchester City player took his phone from her, thinking she had taken pictures of him or his home. Benjamin Mendy would then, according to the alleged victim, go upstairs in possession of the phone. The complainant followed him to retrieve his phone, and without any other purpose according to him, then arriving in a room that she did not know was the player’s room.

To give her back her phone, he would have demanded that she undress

She says Mendy used her fingerprints to unlock the room and get in, before the door closed behind them. She says she felt trapped then. “I want my phone, I don’t want to sleep with you, I just want to leave,” she said, telling Mendy, who reportedly replied, “the door is locked anyway.” The player would then have asked him to undress, saying: “I just want to look at you, I promise I won’t touch you”. The complainant says she again asked to leave. “I just want to watch you. You can’t leave anyway.”

The complainant states that Mendy again asked her to undress and then threw the phone on the bed. “I had the feeling of not having a choice and of not being able to go out”, specifies the complainant during the cross-examination when explaining why she finally undressed at the request of Benjamin Mendy. It was then that the player, according to her, threw her on the bed. She says she found herself “on all fours” (she reproduces the position after asking the interrogator if it was useful). “I really don’t want to sleep with you, I have to go,” she said repeatedly to Mendy, adding that Mendy was “pulling her butt towards him.” The victim recounts that Mendy told her “everything is fine, I’m just going to

“I was in great pain”

She says she tried everything to free herself but “it kept coming back”: “I was just wondering how I was going to be able to get out of here”. She specifies that Mendy began to penetrate her, the young woman then says that she repeated again that she did not want him. “My body was so tense, I was in a lot of pain,” she recalled, saying that she bled after these forced reports. She then clarifies that Mendy asked her to put his penis in her mouth. She says she did it and then tried to take it off, telling him “I can’t”.

“You can come here every night”

Mendy said she sat down afterwards, telling her she was “too shy”. Complainant’s response to player: “I’m not shy, I just don’t want to sleep with you.” Mendy would then have boasted of having “slept with 10,000 women“. A wording that the woman maintained during cross-examination, saying she was “absolutely sure”.

The victim then recounts that Mendy began to change, telling her, “Don’t tell anyone. And you can come here every night.” “As if it had been a privilege to come every night to do this with him,” said the young woman. According to her, Mendy then came out of the pit. The complainant then said that she found her friend and asked her to leave. The alleged victim adds that after the attack, Mendy would have gone to his kitchen and would have asked the chef “to cook him some food”.

“I didn’t just say no, I said ‘I don’t want to sleep with you'”

About a possible consent, the complainant was very clear, ensuring on several occasions, during her hearing before the police and then during the interrogation, to have always said no to Benjamin Mendy. Relaunched by the interrogator, the complainant confided that she felt “that it was not right” immediately after the alleged assault, specifying that she did not feel well about what had happened. “It drives me crazy to know how many times I’ve said no, she adds to the interviewer. And I didn’t just say no, I said ‘I don’t want to sleep with you’. It was very clear and it wasn’t heard. It couldn’t have been misinterpreted.”

The next day, he would have contacted her via Snapchat

The complainant also said Mendy messaged her on Snapchat the next day: a series of question marks. She said she wondered how he had done it since she hadn’t added it. She thinks Mendy added her when he took her phone at the party. The victim also says she received another Snapchat message from a man who was with Mendy at the bar the day before, who allegedly asked her, “Are you okay? Call me please, so we can talk.” She then says that she took screenshots of the messages before blocking the two accounts.

“I felt like it was the longest day of my life but it was maybe 15 minutes,” she said. Asked by Benjamin Mendy’s lawyer about not having immediately told her friends that she had been raped, the complainant added: “I was in shock, I was not able to formulate the fact that I had been raped.” On Wednesday, the testimony of a first complainant , who accuses Mendy of attempted rape, had been broadcast.

Source: A.Bouchery

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