Ryan Giggs trial live - Affair went from ‘fairytale’ to ‘relentlessly awful’, ex says

The trial of former Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs has resumed for its third day at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester.

Mr Giggs, 48, stands accused of controlling and coercive behaviour against his ex-girlfriend, PR executive Kate Greville, 36, between August 2017 and November 2020, assaulting her, causing actual bodily harm and the common assault of her younger sister.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Ms Greville is currently facing cross-examination from Mr Giggs’s defence barrister, Christopher Daws QC, and has described feeling like a “slave to [Mr Giggs’] every need and every demand” during their on-off relationship.

“That’s what it felt like,” she told the court on Wednesday. “If Ryan said do something, I would do it. He made me feel like I had to do everything he said or there would be consequences.”

She described initially seeing him as a “knight in shining armour” rescuing her from an unhappy marriage, before he “lured” her into an affair and gradually became “aggressive regularly”, speculating that he may suffer from narcissistic personality disorder.

The trial continues.

Key Points

• Kate Greville says she was ‘slave to Ryan Giggs’ every need and every demand’

• Greville believes Giggs has narcissistic personality disorder

• Relationship became ‘relentlessly awful’ after ‘fairytale’ start

• Giggs lawyer accuses Greville of ‘complete pack of lies’ over hotel corridor claim

• Defence barrister claims Greville’s bruising caused by ‘rough sex’, not assault

QC questions Greville on her decision to send personal videos to Giggs despite blackmail fears

16:19 , Joe Sommerlad

Mr Daws is continuing to press Ms Greville on her texts and messages to Mr Giggs, apparently to establish the extent of their intimacy at different points of the relationship at which she accuses his client of abusive or coercive behaviour.

On her agreeing to send Mr Giggs “naughty videos” when they were requested, the QC asks: “This is just six weeks after you say he was threatening to blackmail with sex tapes and you send him a number of such videos… Why didn’t you just say ‘No, I’ve deleted them’?”

She answers: “Because we were back in a relationship… I thought he had changed and was in a different place, I didn’t think we’d get back to that place. It was the same cycle, he promised the world and I thought we were in a good place.”

Court played harmless Christmas video Greville feared was sex tape Giggs would use to blackmail her

15:55 , Joe Sommerlad

The trial is back underway and Mr Daws is asking Ms Greville about an email she was sent by Mr Giggs whose subject line was “Blackmail”.

The QC questions her on whether she believed it to be a sex tape and whether she feared the ex-footballer planned to release it to a WhatsApp group of his friends to humiliate her.

“That was my frame of mind at the time, that’s what I thought he was capable of doing,” she responds.

In fact, the video turns out to be a a group of women in Santa hats dancing to Wham’s “Last Christmas” - one of whom is Ms Greville herself - with rappers beat-boxing over the track, which is played in court for the jury.

“At the time he sent it I thought it was a sexual video,” she says, claiming that Mr Giggs had recently sent her a naked photo of himself, which had made her paranoid about the clip’s content, although she says she had deleted it without watching it.

Greville and jury temporarily leave courtroom

15:29 , Joe Sommerlad

Judge Manley has called a brief halt to proceedings while a point of law is addressed.

Defence lawyer presses Greville on lost phones and data access

15:19 , Joe Sommerlad

Christopher Daws is pressing Ms Greville on the circumstances in which she lost won phone in a river while rescuing her dog and had another stolen in the street, likening the situation to her initially agreeing to give the court access to her iCloud account before reneging.

"Did you delete anything that might have been relevant?" he asks, suggesting she may have pictures or messages to hide.

She says she had deleted some texts referring to an ex-colleague and feared for her career if private information should be made public.

Greville quizzed on deterioration of relationship in 2018

14:59 , Joe Sommerlad

Mr Daws asks about Ms Greville’s relationship with Mr Giggs from in 2018, after she had moved back to Manchester from Abu Dhabi to work for him on a project involving former Manchester United teammate Gary Neville.

“You said Ryan was paying you much less attention when you returned to England,” the QC asks, to which she answers yes.

The defence lawyer suggests that Mr Giggs being considered for the job of Wales manager was behind this, not a loss of interest in their relationship.

“He had been through other stressful times when we had been together,” Ms Greville answers.

“The work situation was not the reason for him giving me less attention.”

She tells the court Mr Giggs was “lying to his children” about their relationship and she had urged him to “be honest with them”.

“He was lying to them and making the situation worse, lying about and where he was… I said ‘Don’t lie to them about what you’re doing’.”

Jury asks prosecutor to define ‘gaslighting'

14:43 , Joe Sommerlad

Judge Manley calls on prosecutor Peter Wright QC to give a definition of the term, to which he obliges by giving the Oxford English Dictionary interpretation, which is: “To manipulate (a person) by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity.”

The word is derived from the title of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gaslight about an abusive husband who contrives to convince his wife that she is mad and that his own (real) indiscretions are imaginary.

Christopher Daws’s cross-examination of Kate Greville resumes.

Trial resuming

14:27 , Joe Sommerlad

Judge Manley is back in the courtroom with a stern warning to the public that she “does not want to see a repeat of the unseemly exit she witnessed this morning” when they leave at the end of the day.

Trial adjourns for lunch

13:10 , Joe Sommerlad

That’s it for the moment - proceedings resume at 2pm.

Defence barrister claims Greville’s bruising caused by ‘rough sex’, not assault

13:06 , Joe Sommerlad

Ms Greville explains that she had told her business partner Elsa Roodt that the bruise she returned from Dubai with had been sustained during sex, rather than an assault, “because I was embarrassed and I didn’t want to admit it.”

Mr Daw counters: “That’s a complete lie isnt it? It was a bruise caused by rough sex, the kind of which you both enjoyed a lot.”

She denies this.

He persists: “The idea of it being a sex bruise as a rouse is ridiculous. The truth is you did from time to time get bruises from sex.”

Ms Greville answers: “Not that I recall.”

The QC then discusses a string of messages concerning handcuffs and a paddle to underscore the idea that the couple participated in sadomasochistic sex and that her injury could have been sustained through such practices.

Giggs lawyer accuses Greville of ‘complete pack of lies’ over hotel corridor claim

12:52 , Joe Sommerlad

Christopher Daws is now disputing Ms Greville’s harrowing account yesterday of an incident in Dubai in which Mr Giggs allegedly “dragged her naked across the floor and threw her out of a hotel room”, leaving her stranded in a corridor.

“I’m going to suggest that didn’t happen,” he says.

She rejects his suggestion that the story is “a complete pack of lies” before breaking down in tears.

The episode, as the accuser tells it, appears to have been one of many dramatic moments in an on-off relationship that Ms Greville said previously said was “like a rollercoaster”, which saw her relocate to the UAE at one stage to escape Mr Giggs’s attentions and which led her to suspect he was a compulsive womaniser.

In case you missed it, here is our report.

Ryan Giggs ‘dragged naked girlfriend across floor and threw her out of hotel room’

Relationship became ‘relentlessly awful’ after ‘fairytale’ start, Greville says

12:28 , Joe Sommerlad

Ms Greville denies Mr Daws’s suggestion that she was primarily interested in Mr Giggs became of his wealth and fame and disuptes his timeline of their relationship, saying they first slept together in December 2014 and that she left her husband the following February.

She says that the nasty language seen in Mr Giggs’s aforementioned text messages was not typical of their relationship initially.

Asked if the ex-footballer had behaved lovingly towards her, she answers: “At the beginning yes. For four-and-a-half years he was nice, for one-and-a-half years he wasn’t. By the end of the relationship it was relentlessly awful.

“The time it really ramped up and it was awful was during Covid when we were living together. When I returned back to Manchester [from the UAE in January 2018] that’s when he turned and there was a significant change in his behaviour.”

Presented with the suggestion that the abusive messages were atypical, Ms Greville counters:“Yes they were, he hadn’t written it down before. He was, he just did it verbally. He sent it in emails because he couldn’t do it verbally and I was standing up for myself.”

Asked to reflect on their happier moments, she describes their initial relationship as like a “fairytale”.

“He was very supportive,” she says. “He made me feel amazing. He love-bombed me. I literally thought he was the best thing.”

Ex-girlfiend saw Giggs as ‘knight in shining armour’

12:17 , Joe Sommerlad

Mr Daws, seeking to prove that both parties were responsible for the commencement of their relationship, alludes to “provocative” pictures Ms Greville sent to Mr Giggs after they first met.

“I knew he was interested,” she explains. “I was in an awful relationship with my ex-husband. It was horrendous. He showed me attention. It was flattering. He made feel better than my ex-husband. It felt like escapism.”

She continues: “I did care he was married but at that point in time... When someone is, like they’re your knight in shining armour, that takes over.”

Greville says she felt 'lured’ into relationship

12:11 , Joe Sommerlad

Ms Greville has told the court she felt lured into a relationship with Mr Giggs, noticing how often he repeated her first name, which she interpreted as a calculated endearment strategy.

”There were things I noticed about him that definitely were luring me into a relationship," she says, citing the book How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Christopher Daws, cross-examining, asks whether she has any evidence that Mr Giggs ever read that book, attempting to debunk the idea that he might have been engaging in “clever psychological games”. She answers no.

”The impression you give is you only had an affair with Ryan because of your own unhappiness and he had effectively reeled you in with techniques and strategies,” the defence barrister contends.

Ms Greville replies: “I’m giving examples of how it started…. I was fully involved in that at the time, pressuring me to get in a relationship, absolutely not. There were definitely things of him luring me into a relationship and when my mum asked me to get a signed shirt I knew that would be the start of something.

“I felt like he was using techniques and I was vulnerable, that’s fact. I was in a controlling relationship, that’s a fact.”

Greville believes Giggs has narcissistic personality disorder

11:53 , Joe Sommerlad

The accuser says she Googled the condition and found its definition resonated with her experiences of the relationship with Mr Giggs.

She denies speaking to journalists and reading news reports about the early stages of the trial.

“I’ve got a 12-week-old baby, I’ve not got time to read things,” she says.

Ex-girlfriend says she was ‘slave to Giggs’ every need and every demand’

11:51 , Joe Sommerlad

Ms Greville says of Mr Giggs that she was a “slave to his every need and every demand”.

“That’s what it felt like,” she tells the court. “If Ryan said do something, I would do it. He made me feel like I had to do everything he said or there would be consequences.”

Elaborating on how she met him, she tells the court: “I was vulnerable and I was in a vulnerable position and he played on that.”

She contends that Mr Giggs went on to “damaged relationships with my friends and isolated me from certain people", saying that he ”interfered” with “elements” of her social life and was “aggressive regularly” and there were ”times when he was violent”.

She denies Mr Daw’s suggestion that she is motivated by compensation.

Trial resumes

11:42 , Joe Sommerlad

Judge Manley has now got matters underway after this morning’s delay, explaining that she was “dealing with a matter of law”.

Mr Giggs’s barrister Christopher Daw QC can commence his cross-examination of Ms Greville, which he begins by establishing how she would prefer to be addressed and whether she has read back over witness statements to police from November 2020.

She says she did so for the first time last Friday.

Giggs had affairs with eight women, ex-girlfriend tells assault trial

11:25 , Joe Sommerlad

With the preliminary matters still under discussion and holding up proceedings, here is our report of Ms Greville’s accusation that Mr Giggs was involved with at least eight other women during their relationship, a discovery she claims to have made by looking through messages on his iPad.

Ryan Giggs had affairs with eight women, ex-girlfriend tells assault trial

‘Abusive’ texts Ryan Giggs sent girlfriend revealed

11:05 , Joe Sommerlad

As we await the start of today’s session, here is a reminder of what we have heard so far about the text messages the former footballer allegedly sent Ms Greville, whom he first met in 2013 when the PR firm she worked for, Tangerine, worked on the launch of Mr Giggs’s Hotel Football in Manchester.

Prosecutor Peter Wright QC read out some of the offending messages yesterday in which Mr Giggs begged Ms Greville to unblock him from social media platforms and called her an “evil, horrible c***.”

“Off the pitch in the privacy of his own personal life at home or behind closed doors, there was, we say the facts reveal, a much uglier and more sinister side to his character,” Mr Wright told jurors.

“This was a private life that involved a litany of abuse, both physical and psychological, of a woman he professed to love.”

Thomas Kingsley has this report.

‘Evil, horrible c***’: ‘Abusive’ texts Ryan Giggs sent girlfriend revealed

Short delay to trial

10:45 , Joe Sommerlad

Proceedings are behind schedule this morning, with a short delay expected as Judge Hilary Manley deals with a preliminary matter.

The jury has yet to be called into the courtroom.

Giggs arrives at court for today's proceedings

10:40 , Joe Sommerlad

Here is the former football superstar arriving outside of court this morning, wearing a dark suit and flanked by his legal representatives.

Ms Greville is expected to be cross-examined today by Mr Giggs's defence barrister, Chris Daw QC.

Ex-Man United player was ‘like two people’ during relationship, trial hears

10:25 , Joe Sommerlad

Yesterday, Ms Greville described how she had begun seeing Mr Giggs while still unhappily married to a controlling husband.

“He would tell me about his marriage and he was not happy, I would talk about mine,” she said.

“Things developed from there and we started to have an affair. I left my husband two months later.

“He was like a best friend, a soul mate, he was the one to save me from that marriage. It was more than a sexual thing.

“It was like he was my best friend but there were definite red flags.”

Ms Greville said that, despite saying he wanted to settle down with her, Mr Giggs often “flipped” and was aggressive towards her.

In one incident in a hotel room, he dragged her by the wrists and threw her naked into the corridor, she said.

“It was like he was almost two people. It was like ‘is he a good person? Is he a bad person?’ I started to get horrendous anxiety,” Ms Greville said.

Here’s Liam James’s report on day two at Minshull Street Crown Court.

Giggs was ‘like two people’ during relationship, ex-girlfriend tells assault trial

Ryan Giggs had ‘sinister side’ and ‘headbutted’ girlfriend, court told

10:10 , Joe Sommerlad

In case you missed it, the first day of the proceedings on Monday saw Ms Greville relate how Mr Giggs had grabbed her by the shoulders and headbutted her after she had confronted him about his serial cheating.

Ms Greville told the court that in the lead-up to the alleged assault in November 2020 she had learned Mr Giggs had “full-on relationships” with eight women while they were together.

The discovery of messages “going back years” on the former Manchester United footballer’s iPad prompted her to decide to leave him, she said.

Ms Greville said she had secretly signed up for a new flat and planned to “disappear” from Mr Giggs’ home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, where she had lived since the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020.

On the afternoon of 1 November, she went with Mr Giggs to Manchester’s Stock Exchange Hotel, part-owned by the defendant and fellow ex-footballer Gary Neville.

But an argument ensued in the restaurant over dinner, prompting angry scenes later that evening when Ms Greville had returned to Mr Giggs’s house to remove her belongings with the assistance of her sister Emma.

Here is a full report of Ms Greville’s account of what happened next.

Giggs headbutted woman after she confronted him about love cheating, court told

Kate Greville to give further evidence in assault trial

09:55 , Joe Sommerlad

Day three is set to get underway in Manchester at 10.30am this morning.

Ms Greville is expected to continue giving evidence.

She has done so so far speaking from behind a curtain in the interests of privacy.

09:35 , Joe Sommerlad

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s coverage of the Ryan Giggs trial, where the ex-Manchester United player has been charged with coercive and abusive behaviour as well as assault against his ex-girlfriend Kate Greville and her sister.

We will bring all the latest updates as the trial continues today at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester.