September 14 – Manchester City player Benjamin Mendy has had one of the eight rape charges against him dropped during his on-going trial at Chester Crown Court.
At the direction of the judge at his trial, Mendy, 28, was cleared of the rape of a 19-year-old woman at his home in Prestbury, Cheshire, on July 24 last year.
Louis Saha Matturie, 41, who is also trial for six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault, was also found not guilty of two counts of rape against the same woman.
Mendy still faces seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women.
Prosecutors described Mendy as a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”. Matturie is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for sex.
On dismissing the rape charges after the prosecution offered no further evidence for the rape alegations, Judge Stephen Everett told jurors not to speculate on why the prosecution had decided not to pursue guilty verdicts but to continue to “faithfully” try the defendants on the multiple charges they still face.
Both men deny the charges against them saying that any sex with the women or girls was consensual.
The trial continues.
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