Benjamin Mendy tells court of his party lifestyle and drink-driving

Footballer Benjamin Mendy told a court he drank ‘one or two glasses of tequila’ on the morning he is accused of trying to rape a woman as she got out of a shower.The 28-year-old was giving evidence at his trial this morning about his life between October 2018 and August last year – when he is accused of raping and sexually assaulting a total of six different women on five separate occasions.Jurors heard Mendy had to sell his yellow Lamborghini and stopped sending money to family in France – which was paying for relatives’ private education and homes – after the Premier League side stopped paying him in September last year. He admitted his behaviour was ‘unprofessional’ and he has been ‘disrespectful’ towards women, but denies seven counts of rape, one count of sexual assault and one count of attempted rape.The French International also said he was ‘not sober’ on the day a woman has accused him of trying to rape her in October 2018 after drinking the tequila – but he ‘felt pretty normal’.Jurors heard the pair had been out partying the night before with another pal – who had slept with the woman and allegedly told Mendy he could sleep with her too.It has been claimed in court he went into the bathroom where she was showering while touching himself, and tried to pull her onto the bed as she told him to stop.  Benjamin Mendy is accused of trying to rape a woman as she got out of the shower (Image: Daily Miror)Chester Crown Court also heard Mendy had house parties after being interviewed by police over one of the rapes and a sexual assault allegation – a breach of his bail conditions.Prosecutor Timothy Cray KC told the court Mendy didn’t think ‘the rules applied to him’.Mendy also admitted to drink-driving after nights out, adding: ‘It’s not a nice thing to do or to say it. But at the time it’s like I was not thinking about all of that [stuff] that was bad – the parties, the covid rules. It was like I was on the train and it was going fast and I just kept going. I kept going until I went to prison.’The court heard Mendy was first interviewed in November 2020 after allegedly raping a woman three times during a party at his home in Mottram St Andrew the month before. After this he held at least two lockdown-breaking parties on New Year’s Day and January 2. He was then interviewed on January over sexually assaulting a woman at the January 2 party.  Mendy, 28, gave evidence during the trial (Image: Daily Mirror)Mendy admitted police had visited his house on New Year’s Day 2020 to warn him about breaching the coronavirus restrictions by having a party.Asked by the prosecutor if he got into trouble for the party, Mendy said: ‘No, I don’t think so.’Mr Cray continued: ‘Did you think that maybe you shouldn’t have a party the next night?’Mendy said: ‘At the time, I didn’t think this, no.’The prosecutor continued: ‘You had parties because you had this lust for sex, didn’t you? That’s what the parties were about’ to which Mendy replied: ‘No.’Mr Cray also asked: ‘As a professional footballer, do you think your behaviour after your arrest was professional?’ to which Mendy said: ‘No.’The court also heard Mendy’s bail conditions were that he had to sleep at The Spinney each night and not have parties. Louis Saha Matturie denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault (Image: Daily Mirror)But Mr Cray said Mendy continued to have parties at his rented flat in Chapel Street in central Manchester, despite having ‘plenty of warning that his behaviour might get him into really serious trouble’. Mr Cray said: ‘The way you went about this was that rules didn’t apply to you.”I was not thinking at all. I kept going, kept partying’, said Mendy. Asked if he thought he needed to be ‘more careful’, Mendy said: ‘No, maybe a bit but I kept going. For me everything was fine, I knew I went to a police interview, but because in my head I did nothing wrong I carried on.’He later added: ‘About my social life I did a lot of things wrong but about women – I didn’t.’ Mr Cray also asked Mendy about the evidence of a woman who said she had been prevented from going to Mendy’s cinema room by two men while her friend was allegedly being raped in there by Mendy.He said: ‘There’s evidence from a witness that two of your friends stopped her from coming down to the cinema room.’You sent  [one of the alleged victims] a text that was read out where you were telling her in the bedroom ‘Don’t worry, no-one will come in’. ‘The way it went for you when you were off with a girl your friends would come to stop other girls coming in and seeing what was going on?’Mendy said: ‘Yes. It happened. I asked to have some privacy.’He denied telling one of the women ‘All these women want to f*** me’ and another that he had slept with ‘thousands’ of women. Mr Cray said: ‘The fact of having sex with many many women you didn’t really know, that was the way you were, the way you were living your life.’Mendy admitted he was ‘never really thinking’ about whether he was giving women sexually transmitted infections, adding: ‘I just kept going.’His co-accused Louis Saha Matturie, 41, of Salford, Greater Manchester, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven young women.Both men say any sex was consensual.The trial continues.