Benjamin Mendy

It happens all the time. It’s just not usually at a high profile trial, it happens at the investigative stage or the case falls apart when the prosecutor looks at it.

I certainly convinced myself that he was guilty due to amount of charges, so I guess I have to own up to being wrong.
I should have stuck to my initial notion that these were just sluts trying to make bank.

I hope there is some justice or good karma coming Mendy’s way, considering the years he lost and subsequently the damage to his reputation, his finances, his mental health, and his career (to think he could have been a PL & CL winner.)

The damage of a false accusation is irreparable and there should be some repercussions for such sluts.

The court of public opinion will prevent him from ever being able to resume his career peacefully again.

I do hope he finds a way to claw back a considerable portion of the millions he lost out in whilst being imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit.

3 Likes

Where you been?

If anyone should be getting on to a fat Saudi contract it’s him.

1 Like

He will be a getting a bucket load of money from Man City tbf.

His agent will definitely be ringing up Saudi clubs

Busy with some life plans, don’t feel like posting. I shit posted about Mendy, so I thought it’s only fair I give him some kudos for coming out clean. What a sad story this has been in hindsight.

1 Like

Ah safe.

Coincided your return with India sending a rocket to the moon.

1 Like

I find it bizarre that footballers are being criticised for standing up for Mendy who was quite clearly on the end of a series of false rape allegations.

I’ve long been one of the absolute biggest champions of women’s rape cases being taken more seriously both on this forum and in the real world. I understand the issues with rape cases, the conviction rates, the victim shaming and stuff but I cannot understand for the life of me why some people are so hell bent on ignoring the not guilty verdict

5 Likes

but using their voice in response to a rape verdict isn’t how to do it

They can use it however they want to, just like Bellerin can. Weird people.

3 Likes

And why is it a problem that people are supporting a colleague who’s spent 2.5 years locked in legal hell and having his name dragged through the mud?

3 Likes

I like a lot of what Bellerin does outside football but I completely disagree with him endorsing that. And even the group that posted it are wrong to criticise the players that have spoken out for Mendy. He is not guilty, and behaving like he is, or that his accusers are still victims discredits them as an organisation.

5 Likes

Either they respect the court of law or they don’t. There’s no in between where they say nothing in case the suspect might have got away with it. It’s clear the divide on this is around the competency of the legal system more than anything. This should be clearly stated if that’s the implication in the outrage, rather than expecting people to vilify a person for life because of accusation alone when due process has completed.

1 Like

Mendy has had to sell houses, cars and jewellery to fund his legal team in order to eventually get the not guilty verdict. It put an end to the prime of his footballing career and he can never recover what he has lost during this process. Having read several of the transcripts of witness statements and the defence evidence, I don’t believe he should have been prosecuted in the first place (In my lay opinion), the chances of a guilty verdict had to be slim. I believe if he wasn’t a Premier League footballer, I don’t believe this case would ever have made it to trial.

In fact, I think taking cases as weak as this one appeared to be to trial does more harm to victims of rape in the long term.

Supporting Mendy after being found not guilty does not condone rape, it shows support for a colleague/friend AFTER the courts have ruled. It would be different if these footballers were showing the same public support PRIOR to the court process.

3 Likes

That’s not how it works. He wasn’t found innocent as in “this didn’t happen”, he was found “not guilty” which means the prosecution could not meet its burden of proof. Those are two completely different things.

And Bellerin is absolutely right to point out the statistics because false accusations are extremely rare. What ends up happening – including on this Board – is that if there is a high profile acquittal, people end up saying things like “Well I’m going to look at all accusations as suspect from now on” when the stats just don’t back that up.

I’m all for due process and if Mendy’s friends want to big him up online because he beat the charges, good for them, but you can’t extrapolate what happened in this case with, apparently, some pretty shaky facts, across all rape allegations.

4 Likes

Jury wasn’t offered the choice of “guilty” or “innocent” or “not guilty/not innocent cos burden of proof wasn’t met”, they were only offered guilty or not guilty and he was found not not guilty. If people want to then cry about a flawed legal system, so be it and cry about that, but Mendy or whoever supports him should not be vilified because people don’t like the outcome. A person should not forever be treated as if they were guilty just because they were charged, otherwise what is the point of a court process, we should just imprison everyone who is charged…

2 Likes

Who is vilifying him? The only things I’ve seen are messages from other footballers bigging him up and hoping he gets money back.

There’s nothing wrong with pointing out the damning statistics on the matter.

However a blind eye can’t be turned towards the possibility of false accusations designed to extort people. Like the million other scams in existence. Where the perpetrators of that crime are likely to target an unsuspecting wealthy person over any average joe. This has happened and does happen even in the statistical minority of cases.

Fearmongering has grown against women around this no doubt about it. And the legal system has to have mechanisms in place for both situations otherwise it creates more dysfunction on the matter.

The implication that if you’re found not guilty, you’re still not absolved of the charges levelled against you renders the legal system as incompetent and inconsequential. It means a victim of false accusation can never clear their name no matter what. There has to be a resumption to normality after a not guilty verdict otherwise you can’t have parity in the system.

1 Like

He’s literally being toasted all across the internet by people who can’t respect the not guilty verdict and are desperate to point out that it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s innocent.

Well, actually it does. Because if the burden of proof to convict him of the crime was not met then he’s absolutely innocent until anyone can prove otherwise. And because nobody can prove he did it people are pointing to low rape conviction statistics as if that’s the new brush you can use to tar Mendy with.

1 Like