LONDON, Aug 18 — Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy told one of his rape accusers that if she kept quiet she could come to his house “every night” like it was a “privilege”, his trial heard today.

Recorded testimony from the 20-year-old woman was played to the jury at Chester Crown Court in north-west England, in which she said the Frenchman locked her in his bedroom before carrying out the alleged attack.

During the tearful interview, she recalled meeting the 28-year-old defender while out with friends at a bar in Cheshire in October 2020.

Mendy then invited them back to his nearby mansion, where he took her phone, accusing her of taking photographs of him.

She said that she followed Mendy into a bedroom to get her phone back when the door behind them closed and locked.

The accuser told Mendy: “I don’t know what you think is going on. I don’t want sex with you”, to which he responded “the door is locked anyway,” according to her testimony.

The jury heard her say that Mendy then raped her three times in around 20 minutes as she told him: “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to have sex with you. I need to go.” “My body was so tense. It was just this pain,” she told court.

Mendy then told her: “Don’t tell anyone and you can come over here every night”, she alleged.

“It was like a privilege to come over to have that done every night by him,” she told police.

Mendy is facing eight counts of rape, one count of sexual assault and one count of attempted rape, relating to seven young women.

The Premier League star has pleaded not guilty to all the charges in a trial that is expected to last 15 weeks.

Prosecutor Timothy Cray earlier told the court that Mendy and his co-defendant, Louis Saha Matturie, were “predators, who were prepared to commit serious sexual offences”.

Matturie, 40, has also pleaded not guilty to eight counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault.

Matturie’s alleged offences are said to have taken place between July 2012 and August last year, with Mendy accused of a string of sexual offences starting in October 2018.

Mendy joined Premier League champions City from French side Monaco in 2017. He has played 75 times for Manchester City, but his playing time was limited by injuries and a loss of form.

He was suspended by City after being charged by police in August last year.

The defender picked up a World Cup winner’s medal after playing just 40 minutes of France’s successful 2018 campaign in Russia. — AFP