A woman allegedly raped by Premier League footballer Benjamin Mendy looked ‘worried’ as she went downstairs with the player during a party at his mansion, a court has been told.
On Tuesday, Chester Crown Court heard from a witness who was at the party at the Manchester City footballer’s home, The Spinney in Mottram St Andrew, Cheshire, on July 23 last year.
At one point in the evening, she said she saw the alleged rape victim heading downstairs towards a cinema room, pool and gym and saw Mr Mendy behind her.
The witness told the court: ‘She said, “I need to go downstairs to get my bag so that I can get changed for work but please can you come and check on me if I’m not back in five minutes?”.
‘I said, “Yeah, course, why?”
‘She didn’t specifically say that she was worried but I could tell by the look on her face she was.
Benjamin Mendy, 28, is accused of eight counts of rape, one attempted rape and one sexual assault. He denies the charges
Louis Saha Matturie, 41, is accused of being Mr Mendy’s ‘fixer’ and of procuring girls to bring back to his home
‘She just said, “Well, Ben’s coming down with me”, and gave me a look.’
The woman alleges Mr Mendy, 28, raped her in the cinema room.
She later told friends she had asked a fellow partygoer to check on her but the woman was stopped from doing so by two men, jurors were told.
Another witness told the court the complainant seemed ‘fine’ after the alleged attack.
The friend, who worked with the alleged victim, told how she had become frustrated that the woman had turned up late to get ready for work in the VIP area of a central Manchester nightclub.
The friend told Chester Crown Court yesterday that she had sent her a series of messages urging her to hurry up so they could get to work for their midnight shift.
The witness told the jury of eight men and four women: ‘She was very, very rushed. She said she had been at a party at Mr Mendy’s house and she had slept with him. I was not very happy with her, I was like “ok, can we just leave?”
Several alleged victims – who cannot be named for legal reasons – said Mr Mendy forced himself onto them in his multi-million pound house
‘I imagine there was more conversation, I cannot imagine it would have just been those two sentences but I can’t remember.’
The witness said that the two women had been drinking ‘quite a lot ‘ in the club and admitted she posted a Snapchat photo of the woman with the caption: ‘She’s shagged a pro footballer and the vino’s still dripping…’
The witness agreed with Eleanor Laws QC , for Mr Mendy, that she would ‘never have posted something like this to hurt her or if ‘something unwanted or bad had happened’.
Ms Laws said: ‘You posted it because she was in a happy mood and it was something which was funny.’
During the party, on July 23, the court was told Mr Mendy’s co-accused, Louis Saha Matturie, ‘grabbed’ a woman while they were in a car after going to buy more alcohol.
The woman, giving evidence from behind a screen, said: ‘Out of nowhere, he grabbed my neck and pulled me towards his face.’
She said Saha Matturie ‘gripped’ her inner thigh with his other hand and ‘wasn’t taking no for an answer’.
She told the court she managed to get out of the car when someone came to help take the shopping in but Saha Matturie told her: ‘Well, later then.’
Mr Mendy appeared to be stopped and asked for an autograph as he arrived at court for the third week of his trial on Tuesday.
He denies eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against seven young women.
Saha Matturie, the footballer’s friend and fixer, is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for sex.
The 41-year-old, 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.