Benjamin Mendy, the Manchester City footballer, raped a string of women lured to his isolated country mansion by a friend who acted as a "fixer", a court has heard.
The 28-year-old is on trial at Chester Crown Court accused of eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault. He denies the charges.
His co-defendant, Louis Saha Matturie, is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for Mr Mendy and creating “situations where those young women could be raped and sexually assaulted”. He also denies all the charges against him.
Timothy Cray QC, prosecuting, said Mr Mendy’s mansion - called The Spinney, in Mottram St Andrew, rural Cheshire - was “part and parcel of how the defendants were able to gain control over their victims”.
“It was isolated or so many of the witnesses thought, and once they were there, with the gates locked behind them, they felt vulnerable,” he told jurors.
On several occasions, the women had their phones confiscated from them upon arrival and believed they had been locked in rooms, the prosecutor said.
The attitude of Mr Mendy and Mr Matturie was that, once the doors closed behind the women at his mansion or a separate flat they used in Chapel Street, they were “available for sex”, Mr Cray told jurors.
Louis Saha Matturie (right) at Chester Crown Court
Credit: David Rawcliffe
/PA
He continued: “Put another way, the prosecution accept that some women would consent to having sex with Mendy, but not every woman would or did. "
The big jump Mr Mendy made, he sa ..
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