The attitude of Mr Mendy and Mr Matturie was that, when the doors were closed behind the women in his mansion or a separate flat they used in Chapel Street, they were “available for sex”, Mr Cray told jurors . He continued: “On the other hand, the prosecution accepts that some women would consent to having sex with Mendy, but not all women would or did.” The big leap Mr Mendy made, he said, was to act as if any woman who arrived at his house was available for sex. “Together, (the defendants) had convinced themselves that free, informed consent about the gender of the women who came into their orbits simply didn’t matter,” Mr Cray said. Men allegedly turned women’s “pursuit of sex into a game.” Opening the trial, Mr Cray said the case had “very little to do with football”, adding: “Instead, we say, it’s another chapter in a very old story: men raping and sexually assaulting women because they think they’re also strong because they think they can get away with it.”
Defendants ‘wouldn’t take no for an answer’
Mr Mendy was a “reasonably famous footballer” who had won the World Cup with the French national team and had a contract with Manchester City, the jury was told.
“Because of his wealth and situation, others were prepared to help him get what he wanted,” the prosecutor said, including Mr Matturie, who he said was Mr Mendy’s “friend and fixer”.
He continued: “The allegations show that one of Saha’s jobs for Mendy was to find young women and create situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted.”
The two men, the prosecutor said, showed “frank disregard for the women they were chasing.”
Mr Cray said: “Our case is that the defendants’ pursuit of these 13 women turned them into predators, who were prepared to commit serious sexual offences.
“The fact that they wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, or that they constructed situations where ‘no’ wasn’t even an option, is something you’ll hear over and over again.”
The defendants will allege that either the sexual encounters were consensual or they didn’t happen at all, the prosecutor told jurors.
Women felt ‘trapped and isolated’
Mr Mendy’s gated mansion is 17 miles south of central Manchester and a 15-minute walk from the nearest village of Prestbury, which added to the feeling that some women had been “trapped and isolated”, the prosecutor said. Drone footage showing the mansion surrounded by fields was shown to the jury, as well as body camera footage of the many floors and rooms it contained, including a gym with murals of Mr Mendy on the walls. The prosecutor said: “Once you’re at home, if you don’t know, it’s not the easiest thing to know where you are, where you’re going or where your friends might be.” Another feature of the mansion was the special locking mechanisms on the doors – ostensibly used to create a “panic room” in the event of a break-in, so that they could only be opened from the inside and not from the outside. However, the prosecutor said, you have to know how to open the doors to those rooms from the inside to leave, which many of the women did not, leaving them feeling locked inside at the time of their alleged attacks. The offenses are alleged to have been committed between October 2018 and August last year. Mr Matturie, 40, of Eccles, Salford, denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight young women. The alleged offenses span from July 2012 to August last year. Mr Mendy has been at Manchester City since 2017 when he moved from Monaco for £52million. He was sacked by the club following allegations by the police. The trial continues.
