‘Predator’ Benjamin Mendy turned pursuit of women for sex into game, court told

Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy is a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”, a court has heard.

The 28-year-old’s trial for eight counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault began at Chester Crown Court on Monday.

Prosecutors allege the French international defender showed a “callous indifference” towards his accusers – who were described in court as “vulnerable, scared, isolated”.

Mendy, a £52 million Premier League star who prosecutors said enjoyed a “privileged and moneyed lifestyle”, is alleged to have committed the offences against seven young women between October 2018 and August last year.

Jurors heard the footballer was “prepared to cross that line” of consent “over and over again” and if “women got hurt or distressed, too bad”.

Opening the case against the defendant, prosecutor Timothy Cray QC told a jury panel of eight men and six women, two of whom will be discharged after the opening: “The prosecution case is simple – it has little to do with football.

“Instead, we say, it is another chapter in a very old story – men who rape and sexually assault women because they think they are powerful, and because they think they can get away with it.”

Mr Cray said the feelings of the alleged victims “counted for nothing”, adding: “These women were disposable, things to be used for sex, then thrown to one side.

“That was the effect of deliberate, planned choices the defendants made, and the desires they let loose many times.”

Mendy’s co-accused, Louis Saha Matturie (40) denies eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to eight young women.

Mr Cray told jurors that Saha, of Eccles, Salford, was Mendy’s friend and fixer, and one of his