LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Manchester City player, Benjamin Mendy, will return to a UK courtroom on Monday to begin his retrial for two alleged sexual offenses five months after a jury exonerated him of numerous other charges.
The 28-year-old Manchester City midfielder Mendy will be back in court at Chester Crown Court in northwest England to answer to two rape and attempted rape charges.
In his most recent trial, which came to a conclusion in January, the jury was unable to make a decision on the two allegations involving two distinct women.
After a six-month trial, the panel of seven men and four women exonerated the defendant of six further allegations of rape and one of sexual assault against four women.
The two counts on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict were given a new trial date by the judge in January, which was set for Monday.
Mendy has refuted all of the accusations leveled against him. His contract with Manchester City expires at the end of this month, and it is apparently not going to be renewed.
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In court in January, Mendy covered his face with both hands and softly rocked back and forth as the not-guilty verdicts were announced.
During that time, Jenny Wiltshire, one of his attorneys, stated that the football player was “delighted” to have been cleared of the majority of the charges he faced.
He was looking forward to “clearing his name in relation to the other two charges so he can start rebuilding his life,” she continued at the time.
Mendy was charged with three counts of rape involving two teens, along with 41-year-old suspected “fixer” Louis Saha Matturie, who was found not guilty by the jury.
Three charges of rape and three counts of sexual assault against Matturie by five other women were also left unresolved by the jury.
Later this year, he will stand trial again separately.
At parties held at Matturie’s opulent mansion south of Manchester, the prosecution said that Mendy was a sexual “predator” who raped or abused young ladies who had been lured there by Matturie.
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Mendy and both of them maintained any sexual activity they engaged in with ladies was consensual and denied ever forcing any lady into having sex.
He moved to Manchester City in 2017 from French club Monaco, although he has 75 games under his belt for City, injuries and a decline in form have cut into his playing time.
He stopped playing on August 15, 2021, just days before he was charged with four counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
After the defender won the World Cup in 2018, he received his final of 10 caps for France in November of that year.
