A 19-year-old woman was allegedly raped by soccer star Benjamin Mendy as she was sleeping after a party at his mansion home, a court heard yesterday.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Mendy rape trial: ‘All I remember is waking up to Ben being on top of me.’
She fought back tears as she told the jury at Chester Crown Court in a pre-recorded video interview that she had been to a night club with the footballer and then back for a pool party at his £4.8 million mansion in Prestbury, Cheshire.
She is one of three women who claim they were raped by the Manchester City defender at the two-day party on the 23 to 24 July last year
The witness, who was 19 at the time, said she and a friend had been to Mendy’s house and then onto a nightclub in Manchester before returning to the mansion for more drinks and a swim in the pool
She said she had champagne, tequila and rose wine and described herself as ‘six out of ten drunk’.
She said she announced that she was tired and was shown to a bedroom by one of Mendy’s friends.
She changed out of the bikini she had brought with her and into her underwear and fell asleep, alone, in the double bed.
The witness said it was between 4 and 5 a.m. when she went to sleep in a double bed in the room.
She tearfully told the court that she woke to find Mendy having sex with her from behind.
She said: ‘I remember waking up with him on top of me. I was like on my side and he was behind me. I had gone to sleep and then he was on top of me.
‘He was inside me. I remember saying that I did not want to do anything because I was on my period. It was only a few seconds and I remember him taking it out.
‘He did not say a word but he handed me a towel to put under me.’
The interviewing police officer asked her: ‘Is there any chance that he thought you wanted to have sex with him that day?’
She replied: ‘No, because I didn’t even know him that well.’
The witness said that she left Mr Mendy’s house the following afternoon and later learned that her friend had also claimed that she was raped by Mendy at the same party.
She said the friend had sent her a message on Snapchat and added: ‘She didn’t go into detail, she just said something had happened to her.
‘I think I wanted to tell her about what happened to me but I just shut it off.’
The jury has been told that it is alleged that Mendy had raped the friend when she was on a sofa in the living room of the house.
The friend had no recollection of the alleged assault but a later DNA sample showed that she had also had sex with Mendy’s friend and alleged fixer Louis Saha Matturie.
The witness who claimed Mendy raped her in the bedroom while she was asleep admitted in the interview that she had consensual sex with Mendy two or three months earlier after meeting him at a party in Saha’s flat in Salford.
She told the court: ‘We had sex. It was just a one night thing. I was sober and It was entirely consensual.’
The witness was cross-examined by Ms Eleanor Laws QC, for Mendy, and admitted exchanging messages with a friend about the sex with Mendy in the flat.
Ms. Laws said the messages showed that the encounter was in March last year and it was the first time she had ever met Mr Mendy.
Ms. Laws said: ‘Do you remember saying you did not know him that well?’
The witness replied: ‘He does not really interact with people at parties so I did not know him that well.
She admitted that the following day she had messaged a friend and said: ‘I slept with a famous Manchester City footballer last night.’
The friend replied: ‘Next time get an autograph or a signed shirt, ha ha.’
The witness had replied: ‘Ha ha…imagine.’
In another message to the friend she said: ‘I keep remembering things I did on Saturday night.
‘Why do I drink? I do not know how I get up to half the stuff I get up to, oh my god.’
Mendy, 28, denies eight rapes, one attempted rape and one sexual assault.
Matturie, 41, from Eccles, Manchester denies eight rapes and four sexual assaults.
The trial continues.