A woman who accused Manchester City star Benjamin Mendy of rape has denied thinking about compensation after searching online for the defender’s net worth.
The woman, who claims she was raped by the World Cup winning left-back at his Cheshire mansion in July 2021, was said to have made the search days before informally speaking to police and two weeks before providing an official statement.
The alleged rape is said to have taken place when the 28-year-old footballer and the woman were alone in a cinema room during a two-day pool party at his £5million ‘isolated’ home – The Spinney in Mottram St Andrew.
Chester Crown Court today heard how the woman is said to have made the Google search months after the alleged incident and after following media coverage of her fellow accusers, who also allege Mendy sexually assaulted them.
The woman later admitted she felt ‘pressured’ by police to bring the charge, after not initially considering the alleged sex attack to be rape
Eleanor Laws QC, representing Mendy, quizzed the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, over why she searched for details on the defender’s personal fortune before making her statement.
She asked her: ‘Why you would you be interested in what he was worth on January 17?’. She later added: ‘Have you a mind to apply for compensation at some point?’
The woman replied: ‘I wasn’t particularly interested but he was headlines and stuff… obviously I’m going to Google him.’ She also denied applying for any compensation.
Mendy, and his co-accused friend and fixer Louis Saha Matturie, 41, both deny the charges and have said any sex had been consensual.
A woman who accused Manchester City star Benjamin Mendy (pictured today outside Chester Crown Court) of rape has denied thinking about compensation after searching online for the defender’s net worth
The woman, who claims she was raped by the World Cup winning left-back at his Cheshire mansion in July 2021, was said to have made the search days before informally speaking to police and two weeks before providing an official statement
Pictured: Benjamin Mendy clutches his phone as he enters Chester Crown Court ahead of Thursday’s hearing
During cross examination by Eleanor Laws QC, for Mendy, she told Chester Crown Court that she was contacted police five months after the alleged incident in January this year.
She said that she told officers initially she did not want to make a statement or be a witness but confirmed that she had gone downstairs to the pool area with Mendy.
During cross examination the witness, who was 22 at the time of the alleged attack, said:’ I went downstairs but it was not like anything I was uncomfortable with.
‘It was not any different to what I had experienced before. I felt there was pressure on me but boys can be quite pressuring.’
Eleanor Laws QC, representing Mendy, told Chester Crown Court that police told the witness that if she waited for another four or five weeks, then her case would not be added to other allegations made against the Manchester City and France defender.
Ms Laws QC told the witness: ‘They said you needed to get a move on if you wanted to be part of the bigger picture.’
She replied:’ I felt I was being dragged into the situation.’
Ms Laws QC said it was the police who first described the incident with the word rape.
The witness, who answered questions from behind a screen, said:’ I felt the word rape meant like a stranger or in an alleyway. But he was my friend and it was his house, I did not consider what it actually was.’
She also denied that she had boasted about having sex with Mr Mendy, which the footballer claims was consensual.
The jury of eight men and four women were shown a Snapchat post by one of her friends in August last year showing the witness sipping a drink with the caption: ‘She’s s*****d a pro footballer and the vino’s still dripping.’
It comes as a court heard how Mendy allegedly told a woman ‘it’s small, don’t worry’ before raping her in an attack that ‘lasted for 20 seconds’.
The footballer, 28, also allegedly told the woman, who claims he raped her during a party at his house: ‘All these women want to f*** me.’
In a police interview played to Chester Crown Court on Wednesday, the alleged victim said the Manchester City left-back tried to ‘debate’ her into having sex after getting her alone at a gathering at his mansion – The Spinney in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire – in July 2021.
Mendy, and his co-accused friend Louis Saha Matturie, 41, (pictured above) both deny the charges against them and have said any sex had been consensual
The trial, which is scheduled to last four months, continues at Chester Crown Court (pictured)
She said she had been playing Jenga and a dare game with the French International and his friends in the kitchen.
Chester Crown Court heard Mendy then asked her to come downstairs and they began kissing by the swimming pool before he pulled his pants down.
She told police: ‘His language was quite direct and crude. He said ‘You don’t trust me’ and I said ‘I don’t know you’.
‘He was like ‘all these women want to f*** me’ and I was like ‘OK’. I think he was saying stuff to make me want to do stuff with him.
‘I was like I’m not doing anything like that and I literally had to give excuses as to why. It was like arguing with a brick wall.’
Mendy denies eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against seven young women.
His co-accused, Louis Saha Matturie, the footballer’s friend and fixer, is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for sex.
Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight young women. Both men say any sex was consensual.
The trial continues.