Jury retires to consider verdict in footballer Benjamin Mendy and Louis Saha Matturie rape case

Emma Sweeney sent this report from Chester Crown Court

The jury in the trial of Premier League footballer Benjamin Mendy has retired to consider its verdicts.

The eight men and four women retired at 2.17pm after Judge Steven Everett concluded his summing up of the evidence heard during the trial, which began in mid-August at Chester Crown Court.

Mendy, 28, is currently suspended by his club Manchester City, and denies seven counts of rape, one count of sexual assault and one count of attempted rape, relating to six women.

The footballer's friend and "fixer" Louis Saha Matturie, 41, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven women.

Opening the trial of the footballer three months earlier the prosecution told the court Mendy and Matturie had targeted young women before taking them back to places they could be raped and sexually assaulted.

Prosecutor Timothy Cray said it was "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.”

It is claimed Mendy lured young women into “toxic and dangerous” situations where they were raped and sexually assaulted at a flat he rented in Manchester city centre, and his home, The Spinney, in Mottram St Andrew, in the Cheshire countryside, used for “after-parties” including regular lockdown-busting gatherings.

Matturie is alleged to have been the “fixer” to get girls back to the parties after nights spent drinking in VIP lounges at Manchester nightclubs.

Both defendants say any sex with women was consensual.

But, jurors were also told by defence barristers to end Mendy's “absolute hell", and acquit him of rape.

Eleanor Laws KC, defending the 28-year-old Premier League player, said his life in football “was over”, but that none of the claims of sexual abuse by six women were reliable.

She said claims Mendy is a “predator” who used his fame to attack women - with the prosecution comparing him to Jimmy Savile, were “utterly ridiculous”.

Defending Matturie, Lisa Wilding KC told the court to question the credibility of their accusers, adding that each allegation was “riddled with inconsistencies and flaws”.

“I suggest there will have come a point when you thought, ‘Hang on a minute. These girls aren’t telling the truth,'” Ms Wilding said.