Benjamin Mendy trial: Teenage ‘rape’ victim denies telling lies about Jack Grealish

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Benjamin Mendy Trial: Teenage ‘Rape’ Victim Denies Telling Lies About Jack Grealish
Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy arrives at Chester Crown Court. Photo: PA
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By Pat Hurst, PA

A teenager who claims she was raped by Manchester City defender Benjamin Mendy denied telling lies about his team-mate Jack Grealish, a court heard.

The woman, 17 at the time, said she was twice raped by Mendy (28), and later the same day raped twice more by his friend and co-accused Louis Saha Matturie (41) during a post-clubbing “after-party” attended by Grealish and others at Mendy’s Cheshire mansion.

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The morning after, she called her boyfriend about the alleged attack, the jury at Chester Crown Court was told.

Eleanor Laws KC, defending Mendy, who denies a series of sex attacks on young women, put it to the teenager that she had told lies to her boyfriend during the telephone call.

“You got carried away with what you were telling him,” Ms Laws said, “And started telling him things that were not true.

“You lied about what happened between you and Jack Grealish. Do you remember telling him that Jack Grealish had taken your phone from you? That Jack Grealish had done that?”

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The teenager replied: “No, that never happened.”

Ms Laws continued: “That would be completely untrue, if you said that?”

“Yes,” she replied.

Ms Laws said: “Did you tell him Jack Grealish was kissing you, grabbing your head when you did not want him to?”

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“No. I never said that,” she replied.

Ms Laws continued: “Because that would be a complete lie, if you said that.”

The teenager responded: “Yes. It would be a complete lie if I said that, I have not said anything like that.”

Ms Laws suggested the teenager wanted to give the impression to her boyfriend that “things were being done to you” and she was a victim.

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The teenager replied: “No. I told him the complete truth.”

The court heard the teenager and other young women went to Mendy’s home on August 23rd last year, after a visit to China White nightclub.

While there she claims Mendy raped her twice in the office at the house, in Prestbury, Cheshire, and Matturie raped her in the cinema room and later at his apartment near Manchester city centre.

Ms Laws turned to “excitable” voicemail recordings made by the 17-year-old and sent to her friends in a Snapchat group sent hours after the party.

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In the first voicemail, played to the jury, the teenager says: “Honest to God. Peak of my life. Had to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). Had to give my phone in. It was a private party… I have been invited out with them next Sunday.”

In another, the teenager says: “The Dom has gone to my head. Don’t you just love champagne when it’s one thousand five hundred quid? I don’t know why I told you all this.”

Prosecutors have alleged Mendy is a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”, while Matturie, his friend and “fixer”, is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for sex.

Mendy denies seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women.

Matturie of Eccles, Salford, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven young women.

Both men say if any sex did take place with women or girls it was consensual.

The trial continues.

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