Manchester City star Benjamin Mendy has been found not guilty of raping four women and assaulting another during lockdown parties at his Cheshire mansion.
The 28-year-old, sitting in the dock at Chester Crown Court, covered his face with both hands, gently rocking back and forth, as the jury foreman, delivering the verdicts in a hushed courtroom, repeated “not guilty” to six counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, relating to four young women or teenagers.
The unanimous verdicts were delivered on Wednesday by the seven men and four women on the jury, one juror having been discharged earlier for medical reasons.
The verdicts could not be reported until jurors concluded considering the remaining two counts, after they were given a majority direction by Judge Steven Everett, meaning he would accept a 10-1 majority on any verdict.
But after 14 days of deliberation, jurors could not reach verdicts on Mendy’s alleged attempted rape of a woman, 29, in 2018 and the rape of another woman, 24, in October 2020.
Judge Everett discharged the jury on Friday, ending the trial.
Mendy’s co-defendant, Louis Saha Matturie, who had been described as Mendy’s “fixer”, broke down in tears as he was found not guilty of three charges of rape involving two women.
The jury was unable to reach verdicts on six other counts against the 41-year-old, four alleged rapes against three women and the alleged sexual assault of two women.
Mendy told his trial it was “normal” for him to sleep with lots of different women, sometimes on the same night as they had had sex with his friends.
Being a famous footballer made it “honestly, so easy” to pick up women at nightclubs and take them to his home near the Cheshire village of Prestbury, he said.
The six women had accused him of assaulting them at his £4.8m gated mansion between October 2018 and August 2021, often at illegal parties held during Covid lockdowns.
The parties were fuelled by alcohol and nitrous oxide balloons and often involved guests stripping down in Mendy’s pool. People would have sex in rooms all over the house, sometimes swapping partners.
One woman was only 17 when she claimed she was raped on the same night by Mendy and his “fixer”, Matturie, known as Saha. The men were cleared of four counts of rape relating to her.
Meanwhile, Manchester City has released a statement after Benjamin Mendy was found NOT guilty of five rape charges, one count of attempted rape, and a separate accusation of sexual assault.
The statement reads; “Manchester City FC notes the verdict from Chester Crown Court today, where a jury has found Benjamin Mendy not guilty of seven charges. The jury is hung on two charges and the trial is now over.
“Given there are open matters related to this case, the Club is not in a position to comment further at this time,” the statement said.