Ryan Giggs trial: Nine things that happened on day four

Ryan Giggs has claimed ex Kate Greville secretly tried to get pregnant with his child and alleged she spoke to friends about selling staged injury photos after he allegedly headbutted her, a court heard. The claims came as Ms Greville was cross-examined on the fourth day of Giggs’ trial following allegations of controlling behaviour towards her from 2017 until their split in 2020 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm against her. He is also accused of assaulting her sister Emma Greville. Giggs denies all charges.

Ms Greville denied claims in court that she had secretly stopped contraception as part of a plan to get pregnant by Giggs after finding out he had been messaging eight other women during their six-year relationship. She admitted in evidence to having her contraceptive coil removed but denied sleeping with Giggs at the time – claiming messages to friends referring to a “plan” were about how she would leave him while he was working in Wales.

Jurors at Manchester Crown Court heard Ms Greville admitted in evidence staging a photo of her leaving the house in November 2020 with a split lip – days after Giggs allegedly headbutted her during a row at their home in Worsley, Greater Manchester. Ms Greville, 37, has also accused Giggs of elbowing her younger sister in the jaw when she tried to pull the former Wales manager off her, the court heard.

Giggs won 64 caps for Wales and 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies, four FA Cups and three League Cups during his time at Manchester United. He is also a co-owner of League Two side Salford City.

Here are nine things heard in court today:

1) Giggs claims Kate was secretly trying to get pregnant for money

Jurors heard Ms Greville, 36, discovered messages on Giggs’ phone showing he had been contacting other women in August 2020. The jurors were read texts that allegedly show she told her friends she was getting her contraceptive coil removed, including one which stated: “I am not walking away with nothing.”

The court heard that, after telling pal Courtney Lang she planned to get her coil removed, the friend replied: “F****** hell well I can’t say I’m surprised as you don’t sound like you are”, with Ms Greville replying: “Going to have to be clever with this one.” Ms Greville allegedly did not tell Giggs, 48, she was having her coil removed and instead said she was at the hospital to treat cancerous cells found after a smear test, the court heard.

Giving evidence, she admitted it was a lie, adding: “I wanted to get him off my back and it’s the only thing I could think of and it’s awful. I completely regret saying those things but I needed to get him off my back, to leave me alone.” Chris Daw QC, for Giggs, suggested that, after she had her coil removed, text messages show the pair joking about having sex twice in 24 hours.

Mr Daw suggested: “You were having active regular and very enthusiastic sex at this time including when you had your coil removed. If you had got pregnant by Mr Giggs you would have anticipated a significant amount of financial support for a very long time.”

The court heard how Ms Greville replied: “If that’s what happens.”

2) Kate admitted to the court she staged a photo after Giggs allegedly headbutted her

The court heard messages between Ms Greville and her friend Courtney Lang nine days after the alleged headbutt in which Ms Lang said: “I’m selling the next pic of you and getting some paper out of this (laughing emojis).” She then says: “I reckon we could get 5k” and said they could use it to “kit out” a new apartment, adding: “We could half it [laughing emoji].” 

Mr Daw claimed: “You are making a joke out of making money to sell stories to newspapers. Do you agree that you are talking here about setting up a newspaper article for money about this case?”

Ms Greville, who admits setting up the shot but denies being paid for it, replied: “Not a newspaper article, it was a picture.” A few days later, Ms Greville said to her friend : “Let’s f****** do it” and discussed that they would need to “sell some more stories” to afford a sofa like the one owned by Love Island star Molly-Mae.

After the staged picture of Ms Greville’s was used in The Sun, Ms Greville sent a link to Ms Lang and said: “I actually do look like a man” with Ms Lang replying: “Omg he used the not as nice one the p****.”

3) Giggs has given his account of the alleged headbutt

Ms Greville accused Giggs of headbutting her after a row at their home in November 2020. Putting Giggs’ version of events to Ms Greville in cross-examination, Mr Daw said: “It was simply the two of you trying to get a phone and your two faces coming together briefly and in very minor contact.”

Ms Greville claimed: “That suggestion is completely false. What happened is he came at me with his arms on my shoulders, looked me straight in the eyes and headbutted me in my lip.” Mr Daw also denied Giggs had “pinned” Ms Greville to the floor just before this in an attempt to get her phone from her.

He said the pair tripped over bags in the hallway and Giggs landed on top of her with his head near her waist. Ms Greville said: “No, I don’t recall his head being by my waist.”

The witness also admitted she had lip filler treatment around three weeks before the incident, but asked whether this would have made her mouth more sensitive she told the court: “I don’t know because I’ve not been headbutted or had my lip split when I haven’t had filler.” 

4) The court heard how Kate lied about having treatment for cancerous cells when she was having her coil removed

Giggs messaged Ms Greville: “You have been in a weird mood the last couple of days”, the court heard. Ms Greville replied: “I had a smear test when you was away and I had cancerous cells. I had to go to hospital on Thursday”, Giggs responded: “Omg.”

Ms Greville then told Giggs: “I don’t want to talk about it again until after Thursday. This is something I want to deal with on my own.” Mr Daw claimed: “You’re telling Mr Giggs you have cancerous cells in your body, you have to go to hospital Thursday and want to deal with this on your own, when the truth was you were having your coil removed.”

Ms Greville said: “I had to get my coil off and I needed an STD test. I was trying to get him off my back and it was the only thing I could think of. It was awful and I regret saying those things but I had to get him off my back.”

5) Kate claims lockdown was ‘living hell’ with Giggs

Ms Greville said she moved in with Giggs in March 2020 when coronavirus hit but claims lockdown with the former Manchester United player was a “living hell”. She told jurors that he made her feel “stupid and inadequate” for not loading the dishwasher correctly and felt like she was “losing her mind”.

Ms Greville also accused Giggs, 48, of grabbing her by the wrist and throwing her out of a Dubai hotel room, and claimed that, at a hotel in London, he threw a bag with a laptop inside it at her head. On another occasion in February 2020, she alleged Giggs called her by his ex-wife’s name and pulled the strap on her bag so hard that she fell forward and landed on her knee, causing a bruise.

Asked by Mr Daw why she moved in if she believed her boyfriend was a “serial abuser”, Ms Greville said: “It was a cycle of abuse that made me feel insecure. I kept going back as he kept promising the world and promising he would change. He can be very convincing, very charming. So I went back again, stupidly, and I am ashamed of that hugely ashamed of it.”

6) Jurors saw footage from the night of the alleged headbutt

Footage from a home security camera was played to jurors as part of cross-examination, in which Giggs can be seen taking things out of a car on the driveway. Ms Greville previously told the court Giggs had started throwing her belongings out of the car where she had been packing them.

Mr Daw told the court Giggs was placing the bags next to a side gate so they could be put into a taxi. He said: “I’m going to suggest you are not going to see him throwing anything. There is absolutely no point at which anything is thrown anywhere outside the house.”

Ms Greville said: “There was. My things were soaking wet. If they were in bags, they wouldn’t have been soaking wet.” Jurors also saw body-worn footage from a police officer speaking to Ms Greville in Giggs’ kitchen after the alleged assaults.

When asked by officers how many times Giggs had headbutted her, the court heard she said: “What, this time? He’s hit me loads of times, this isn’t the first time.” She admitted to Mr Daw QC that she was wrong when she said this, with Mr Daw adding: “You were making up random things.”

Ms Greville responded: “I was trying to explain what had happened. I was confused.”

7) The pair were ‘utterly addicted’ to messaging each other’

Jurors have seen a number of messages between Giggs and Kate Greville including examples when one of them would row with the other about not replying quickly enough. Mr Daw said: “Is it fair to say the dynamic of your relationship is that you both expected really rapid responses when you sent each other messages?”

Ms Greville claimed: “He had conditioned me into behaving like that, because he was like that. I would think well you expect me to reply within seconds, so why do you not reply within seconds?” Mr Daw continued: “You were both like that, you were utterly addicted to messaging all the time backwards and forwards.”

The barrister then referred to a series of messages Ms Greville sent Giggs in January 2018 after which she adds: “And my own f****** boyfriend can’t reply to a message”. The court heard Giggs then replied a few seconds later: “Wtf [what the f***]” and “I have just sorted the kids out”.

Mr Daw claimed: “You were both as bad as each other. It’s not him conditioning you. You were cross and angry when you didn’t get them quick enough.” Ms Greville said: “I felt like it was him making me like that. He was making me react and act like that. It wasn’t a natural reaction for me to be like that.”

8) The pair allegedly rowed over Giggs flirting with his crazy golf partner

Jurors also heard messages between Giggs and Ms Greville after he allegedly assaulted her at a hotel in London in December 2019. The pair were said to be staying at The Stafford London, in Green Park, when Giggs allegedly “threw a bag containing a laptop” at Ms Greville’s head, which caused it to “swell and bruise”. The court heard the pair rowed after Ms Greville accused him of flirting with a woman he was paired with for crazy golf.

Ms Greville denied she tried to “wind him up” in retaliation by flirting with a man in a club later on. She claimed before the court: “While we were at breakfast, I went to touch my head and my head was hurting. I said: ‘Did you throw a bag at me last night?’ and he said: ‘Yes, but you wound me up that much you made me do it’.”

Mr Daw also claimed messages between the pair from the next morning showed “no sign” there had been an assault the night before.

9) Kate claimed her relationship troubles Giggs meant she was isolating from friends

Ms Greville claimed that, by September 2020, her relationship with two of her close friends was “definitely souring”. Ms Greville said that Giggs would flirt with one of her friends “a lot, to my face”, claiming he would say to her, “Does it make you jealous?

She claimed: “His impact on how I was feeling – it made me not want to interact with my friends as much and tell them what was going on, most of the time I kept everything to myself, which obviously affected my relationship with my friends.”

Mr Daw pointed out a number of photos of Ms Greville on holiday with friends in 2019 and 2020, claiming it was a “naked lie” Giggs did anything to stop her seeing them.

Ms Greville replied: “He was creating really difficult relationships with these people. There’s many more months and weeks that I have a relationship with my friends that can be difficult. That’s just a holiday, or a long weekend.”

The trial continues.