Trial of Benjamin Mendy adjourned after member of jury tests positive for Covid
The trial won't resume until at least next Tuesday
The trial of Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy and his "fixer" Louis Saha Matturie has been adjourned after a juror tested positive for Covid-19.
The juror should avoid meeting other people for five days under current NHS guidance, Judge Steven Everett told the remaining jurors after they were brought into court for a brief hearing on Wednesday morning.
Judge Everett told Chester Crown Court the trial would be halted until next Tuesday at the earliest.
It can resume then 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.