Man City star Benjamin Mendy ‘told woman, 29, ‘I’m going to kidnap you’

Man City footballer Benjamin Mendy told a woman ‘I’m going to kidnap you’ before exposing his penis to her at his mansion the next morning and raping her, a court heard today. 

The French international, 28, ‘pushed’ the 29-year-old woman down onto a bed and tried to hold her on his lap, jurors heard. 

Mendy is accused of eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault, relating to seven young women. 

During a police interview played to the jury today, Mendy’s first accuser – known as Woman A – said she first met the footballer in a club in Barcelona in October 2017.

She liked one of his friends, part of his ‘entourage’, but Mendy took a liking to her, she told the officer.

She said Mendy was injured at the time and did not want people taking pictures or videos of him in the club.

A year later, on October 24, 2018, she travelled to Manchester to see Mendy’s friend at the footballer’s house.

After arriving they went out to a restaurant in Manchester and were joined by two Brazilian girls and they all enjoyed some drinking games.

They then went to a club and champagne was ordered before they went on to a second nightclub where she was with Mendy’s friend when the footballer approached her.

She said: ‘At one point he came up to me and said, ‘When he’s not looking, I’m going to kidnap you’. I thought he was joking.’

The woman was asked how much she had drunk and said she thought she had three or four shots and then three or four glasses of champagne.

She said: ‘I would say I was drunk but I was also aware.’

She said she cuddled with Mendy’s friend during the night-out in Manchester but, after Mendy approached with the comment about wanting to kidnap her, she ‘made it clear’ her intentions were directed towards his friend. 

The group returned to Mendy’s house and she spent the night in a bedroom with Mendy’s friend.

The next morning she went downstairs to look for a phone charger for her phone and the Man City player was sat on a settee.

‘When he saw me, he said, ‘Come back here!” the woman said.

She said she declined Mendy’s offer to go to his bedroom to get a phone charger but he began ‘teasing’ her over the charger.

She returned to the bedroom she was staying in, closed the door and got in the shower.

The woman said she was ‘aware of a figure at the door’ and ‘in the corner of my eye’ she saw enter the room.

The woman said: ‘I felt his presence. I don’t know how but I felt his presence. I was just in shock. I just wanted to reach for a towel.’ 

She continued: ‘I left the door to the bathroom slightly ajar. I was in the shower, completely naked.

‘I saw him walk in. He was wearing white boxer shorts. He dropped them. I saw him rub himself on his private area. I said to him: ”You need to leave”.’    

She continued: ‘He stepped back for a bit but then he came in and I managed to wrap myself with a towel.

‘As I came out, he was there. He kept following me around as I went straight to my bag to get my underwear. I couldn’t remember exactly what he said but he kept on obstructing me.

‘He kept forcing himself against me and I tried to keep pushing him away. He sat on the bed and he put me on top of him. He said in French: ‘I like it when you dance.’

‘I tried to push him away but he just kept pushing me down. He took off his boxers and he had his penis near me. He kept on saying: ‘Don’t worry.’

She explained to the officer how Mendy tried to grab her clothes and they ended up on the bed.

She said: ‘I was focused on holding my towel in place. I tried to get away but I prioritised my towel not coming off.’ 

She added: ‘I kept trying to push him away. He got very close. At times I was trying to roll to the other side of the bed.’

The woman continued: ‘He sat on the bed and put me on top of him.

‘At first I was clinging on to my towel. He said, ‘I love it when you dance. I remember you from Barcelona’.

‘I just kept trying to push him off. He kept pulling me down. We fell into the spoon position.’

She described how Mendy slid off his boxers and exposed himself.

 She said: ‘I was just trying to wriggle out it as much as I could.’

The woman said she was ‘confused’ by what was happening. 

‘He took off his boxers. He had his penis near as if almost to penetrate. He said, ”Don’t worry”.

‘I just kept trying to wriggle out. He got very close but I pushed him away as much as I could.

‘I just kept thinking, ‘Where are his friends? Why are they not here? Should I scream? What am I going to do?

‘I pretty much landed myself in that situation because I shouldn’t have gone up there (to Manchester).’

She told the police officer she could not remember how the incident ended but she packed her clothes, got dressed and left through the front door of the house to call for a taxi.

Mendy approached her and said the phone signal was poor in the area and he would get a driver to take her. She added: ‘It was just embarrassing. I just wanted to get out of there.’ 

The court heard that on January 13, 2022, the woman attended the front desk at Walworth Police Station in London to report a sexual assault.

She was wearing a face mask and had her hood up and was reluctant to give any personal details because she was, ‘worried about media interest’.

Officers managed to persuade her to come back into the police station and she agreed to give them her telephone number and told them about the alleged attempted rape, naming Mendy as the person responsible.  

Earlier today, Mr Cray read some agreed facts, not in contention between defence and prosecution, based on notes made by the GP of the 29-year-old complainant.

He said she had a telephone consultation with her GP in August 2021 and said she was feeling ‘low and anxious’ because something had been made public which she was finding difficult, but did not want to discuss the matter further.

The next day she had a face-to-face appointment with her doctor saying she had not had sexual intercourse since 2018 when she was sexually assaulted and that this was related to the current news story involving Mendy.

She requested a doctor’s note for time off work and was worried the matter would be discussed in her place of work.

Her GP suggested she speak to police but the woman said she did not want to at that time.

Mendy’s co-defendant Louis Saha Matturie, 41, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight young women. 

None of the women involved can be identified and reporting restrictions apply ahead of the trial.

Today’s hearing had to be briefly delayed due to technical issues with the video playback – the second time this has happened in two days.  

Both men deny all charges.