Revealed: Ex-Man City star Benjamin Mendy swapped ‘misogynistic’ messages with ‘fixer’ friend calling young women who came to his parties ‘b******’
- Benjamin Mendy, 28, exchanged messages with ‘fixer’ Louis Saha Matturie, 42
Former Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy swapped ‘misogynistic’ messages with his ‘friend and fixer’ referring to young women who came to his parties as ‘b******’, it can be revealed today.
The French World Cup winner exchanged the text messages with Louis Saha Matturie, 42, who has been now cleared of rape and sexual assault charges after a police investigation lasting almost three years.
The messages were never produced to juries at three separate trials involving 28-year-old Mr Mendy and Mr Matturie over allegations of sex attacks at parties held in the millionaire footballer’s £2.2million Cheshire mansion and at Mr Matturie’s flat in Salford.
They were ruled inadmissible after defence lawyers successfully argued that they would be prejudicial.
Mr Mendy was found not guilty of six counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, relating to four women in January after a six-month trial at Chester Crown Court.
Former Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy (pictured) swapped ‘misogynistic’ messages with his ‘friend and fixer’
Louis Saha Matturie (pictured), 42, has been now cleared of rape and sexual assault charges after a police investigation lasting almost three years
Jurors could not reach verdicts on one count of rape and one of attempted rape, relating to two women, but he was found not guilty of those after a retrial in June.
Mr Matturie – who originally went on trial with Mr Mendy – was found not guilty of three counts of rape in January.
The prosecution later dropped one count of rape and one count of sexual assault, and last week Mr Matturie was cleared of two further counts of rape and one of sexual assault.
The jury could not agree on a verdict on one remaining charge of sexual assault.
Today prosecutor Benjamin Aina , KC, announced at Chester Crown Court that the Crown Prosecution Service would not seek a second retrial on the remaining count.
As a result, Judge Steven Everett recorded a formal not guilty verdict.
The decision means that both men have been cleared of all charges brought after a major Cheshire police investigation into alleged sex attacks at parties held at Mr Mendy’s mansion.
It can now be revealed that police uncovered messages which prosecutors at their original trial claimed exposed the true picture of the pair’s ‘misogynistic’ and ‘hateful’ attitude to women – although which of them wrote the messages was never revealed in open court.
One – never presented to a jury – read: ‘We are boss, they are b******.’
Another message read: ‘Bro, if no one f*** the girls they go, because they can’t sleep here, no space.’
A third said: ‘I don’t want any friends coming in. I’m going to f*** the tall one. Get the Spanish girl LOL.’
The social media and text messages were recovered during the police investigation after Mr Mendy and Mr Matturie’s phones were seized by detectives and analysed.
Benjamin Mendy (pictured) now plays for French top division club FC Lorient after leaving Manchester City
During legal argument in the absence of the jury, prosecutor Timothy Cray, KC, applied for the messages to be included in the evidence at the first trial.
He argued the messages showed ‘entrenched and reckless’ attitudes to women and showed both men had an assumption that women who came to his parties were available for sex.
But Eleanor Laws KC, defending Mr Mendy, opposed the jury seeing the messages.
She said many did not involve any of the women involved in the case and argued they did not show that the defendants were reckless to whether women consented to sex.
She said of Mr Mendy: ‘He has a real appetite to have a lot of sex with a lot of women.
‘There’s not a single message that show he did not care whether women were consenting.’
At the time, Judge Everett said all ‘right-thinking’ people would disapprove of the messages, which did the defendants ‘no credit.’
But he stressed that the issue in the trial was not ‘whether they had entrenched views about sex’ but whether the women had consented to sex.
As a result, he ruled that they should not be shown to the jury.
Mr Mendy maintained his innocence throughout and told the jury in his first trial that while he was promiscuous, he would never force himself on a woman or girl, and any sexual activity was consensual.
The French international was alleged to have boasted that he had had sex with 10,000 women, the court had heard.
Mr Mendy, who joined Manchester City in 2017 from Monaco in a £52 million world-record fee for a defender at the time, now plays for French top division club FC Lorient.
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