Benjamin Mendy, a former footballer for Manchester City, has been acquitted of charges of rape and attempted rape.
The allegations against the French international involved the rape of a 24-year-old woman in a bedroom at his luxurious mansion in Cheshire in October 2020. Additionally, he was charged with the attempted rape of a 29-year-old woman at his home two years prior to that.
After denying both charges, Mendy was found not guilty by a jury consisting of six men and six women at Chester Crown Court. Throughout the trial, he maintained that the encounters had been consensual.
The footballer was in “absolute tears” after hearing the verdict, “coming out of the court hugging his friends who were here to support him,” Sky News correspondent Inzamam Rashid said outside court.
“It was a short deliberation by the jury. They were sent out at 10:40am this morning.”
A statement released by his solicitors said that Mendy would like to “thank the members of the jury for focusing on the evidence in this trial rather than on rumour and innuendo that have followed this case.”
They said Mendy has remained strong for almost three years since the police began investigating allegations made against him, but the process has “inevitably had a serious impact on him”.
Earlier this year, the footballer faced a retrial after being unable to reach verdicts on two sexual offence charges against him.
During the retrial, prosecutors presented evidence that Mendy would host parties and social gatherings at his residence, The Spinney, while he was under contract with Manchester City.
The court heard a testimony from a British student who claimed to have met Mendy at a nightclub in Barcelona in 2017. She developed a close relationship with one of Mendy’s friends and subsequently arranged a visit to the footballer’s home the following year.
Following a night out, she alleged that Mendy attempted to rape her.
But the footballer told the jury: “I asked her if we are OK to have sex. She told me, ‘No’ because of my friend.
“I was like, ‘It’s fine, my friend says it’s OK, so if you want, he’s OK with that’. It’s when she started to be like that – upset, sad. I just left the room.”
Two years later, another incident occurred when a woman was out with her friends at a bar close to Mendy’s residence. They received an invitation to visit the footballer’s house.
According to her allegation, Mendy took her phone away and guided her to a locked bedroom. He reportedly threw the phone onto the bed, and as she moved to retrieve it, Mendy is accused of raping her.
During the trial, Mendy informed the jury that the encounter between them was consensual, and they subsequently exchanged contact information on Snapchat.
He was asked whether he had held her down or forced her on to the bed. He said: “No.”
He told the jury: “I will never force to have sex with a woman.”
Mendy became the world’s most expensive defender when City paid £52m to Monaco for him in 2017.
He won three Premier League titles with City and was part of France’s World Cup-winning squad in 2018.
He was released by the club when his contract expired at the end of June.