A woman who yesterday accused a Premier League player of sexually assaulting her said that she felt ‘pressured’ by police to file a report.
She said that she did not at first consider her meeting with 28-year-old Benjamin Mendy of Manchester City to be a rape, and she informed police that she did not want to become involved in the investigation.
The 22-year-old lady is one of three people who have accused the French player of sexually assaulting them during a two-day pool party held at his £4.8 million property in Prestbury, Cheshire, last July.
She testified at Chester Crown Court from behind a screen, saying that she was approached by police five months later and felt like she was “being pulled into the problem” and that the police were the ones who first referred to what occurred to her as a “rape.”
She claims that the player attacked her for 20 seconds, forcing himself on her, leaving her feeling “dirty and embarrassed.” “I believed the term rape meant like a stranger or in an alleyway,” she said in court. But that was his home, and he was my buddy.
It was the same as what I had previously experienced, she said. Although males may be pretty pressurising, I felt there was pressure on me.
She acknowledged that she had Googled “How much is Benjamin Mendy worth?” before to giving her police interview and that, after the alleged rape, she continued to communicate with him on social media.
She also agreed that there was a group of individuals in the city’s clubs known as “the Manchester circle,” which included some of the claimed victims.
She said that Louis Saha Matturie, 41, Mendy’s co-accused and suspected “fixer,” sent her a message saying, “Ben’s done a lot of strange things,” after the latter’s detention.
Eight charges of rape, one of attempted rape, and one of sexual assault are all denied by Mendy. Saha, of Eccles, Greater Manchester, rejects responsibility for four sex assaults and eight rapes. The trial goes on.