Benjamin Mendy’s trial adjourned until next week after juror tests positive for Covid

BENJAMIN Mendy’s trial has been adjourned until next week after a juror tested positive for Covid.

The Manchester City footballer and his ‘fixer’ Louis Saha Matturie are charged with offences against multiple women between October 2018 and August last year.

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Judge Steven Everett told Chester Crown Court the trial would now be halted until next Tuesday at the earliest.

He told the remaining jurors they should avoid meeting other people for five days under current NHS guidance, during a brief hearing on Wednesday morning.

The trial can then resume if the juror is no longer testing positive for the virus and feeling well enough to attend court.

Judge Everett told the jury: “We are all hopeful we will carry on, on Tuesday.

“That’s what happens in a long trial, these things happen.”

The trial, now in its 10th week, has heard that Premier League player and French international Mendy, 28, is a “predator” who “turned the pursuit of women for sex into a game”.

Matturie, 41, is alleged to have had the job of finding young women for sex.

Mendy denies seven counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault against six young women.

Matturie, of Eccles, Salford, denies six counts of rape and three counts of sexual assault relating to seven young women.

Both men say if any sex took place with women or girls it was consensual.

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