Man Metropolis’s Mendy cleared of six rape prices

Premier League footballer Benjamin Mendy has been cleared of intercourse assaults on 4 ladies following a six-month trial, as prosecutors sought a retrial over two different allegations.

The Manchester Metropolis star, 28, sitting within the dock at Chester Crown Court docket, coated his face with each palms, gently rocking backwards and forwards, because the jury foreman, delivering the verdicts in a hushed courtroom, repeated “not responsible” to 6 counts of rape and one rely of sexual assault, regarding 4 younger ladies or youngsters.

The unanimous verdicts have been delivered on Wednesday by the seven males and 4 ladies on the jury, one juror having been discharged earlier for medical causes.

The verdicts couldn’t be reported till jurors concluded contemplating the remaining two counts, after they got a majority route by Decide Steven Everett, which means he would settle for a 10-1 majority on any verdict.

However after 14 days of deliberation, jurors couldn’t attain verdicts on Mendy’s alleged tried rape of a lady, 29, in 2018 and the rape of one other girl, 24, in October 2020.

Decide Everett discharged the jury on Friday, ending the trial.

Louis Saha Matturie, 41, his co-accused and alleged “fixer” was discovered not responsible by the jury of three counts of rape relating to 2 youngsters.

Jurors additionally failed to succeed in verdicts on three counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault towards him by 5 different ladies.

Each had been on trial since August 10, accused of a number of sexual offences by 13 ladies.

Matthew Conway, prosecuting, stated the prosecution will search a retrial on the counts the jury couldn’t attain verdicts on.

He stated: “The prosecution has decided. We now have decided immediately, which is to proceed on these counts in two separate trials and we search immediately a provisional case administration.”

The allegations and trial had been “absolute hell” for Mendy, the courtroom heard, and his life in soccer “is over” as he would “by no means escape” the accusations.

Mendy had been accused of being a “predator” who turned the pursuit of ladies for intercourse right into a sport, his trial heard, ingesting champagne in VIP areas of Manchester nightclubs earlier than inviting younger ladies into “poisonous and harmful” conditions at “after-parties” at his £4.7 million Cheshire mansion in Mottram St Andrew, close to Prestbury.

However jurors have been additionally informed by defence legal professionals that whereas the trial, involving cash, intercourse and movie star, had “all of the makings of a superb drama”, it got here with a big “plot twist” – the accused have been harmless.

Lockdown-busting events have been held each at Mendy’s residence and an house he rented on Chapel Road close to Manchester metropolis centre, the courtroom heard.

He was first arrested in November 2020 after the alleged triple rape of the 24-year-old girl at his residence the earlier month.

Mendy was launched below investigation earlier than he was later accused of sexually assaulting one other girl, aged 24, two months later, and whereas on police bail for that offence, was later accused of the rape of three different ladies, one aged 17 – all offences of which he was cleared.

Mendy was suspended by his membership in August 2021, after he was charged with rape.