Ryan Giggs’ defence team has said said the former Manchester United footballer’s ex-girlfriend is lying about being physically assaulted, claiming her anger with the footballer turned coach lies solely on his cheating and philandering ways, which aren’t crimes.Chris Daw QC claimed that Kate Greville had told so many lies and that the ‘source of her deep, deep anger’ was Giggs’ ‘infidelity’.
PR executive Kate Greville accuses Giggs, 48, of displaying controlling or coercive behaviour towards her and also headbutting her at his home, and elbowing her sister Emma Greville on the same occasion on November 1, 2020.
Giggs denies all charges and is standing trial at Manchester Crown Court.
His barrister Daw told jurors on the 11th day of the trial on Monday, August 22 that ‘morality plays no part in a court of law’.
He said Giggs is not on trial for ‘being flirtatious’, being a ‘compulsive womaniser’, an ‘adulterer’ or a ‘liar’ or a ‘cheat’.
“He is not on trial for any of those things,”. “If they were crimes, just think how many prisons we would need.
“He accused the prosecution of ‘cherry picking’ evidence from more than 19,000 messages the couple had exchanged during their near six year relationship.
Jurors heard Giggs accepted using ‘truly appalling’ language, including when he called Ms Greville a ‘c***. ”
But he said these were not representative of their relationship completely. Daw claimed a letter entitled ‘The Final Goodbye’, which Greville shared with a friend and didn’t send on to Mr Giggs, showed she was angry about his infidelity.”Truth be told, infidelity is what this case is all about,” Daw said.
“The reason Ms Greville was upset was because of that.”He said there was no reference to ‘control’ in the letter.
“Clearly that was the source of her deep, deep anger by the time we reach October (2020),” Mr Daw said.
He told the jury Greville had told lies ‘from the outset’, including when she claimed to police on the evening of November 1 that Mr Giggs had headbutted her before.
“Members of the jury, there are so many lies that she has told,” the QC said. “So many things she has said that can’t possibly be true.”
Daw told the jurors how Ms Greville told Giggs she needed to go to the hospital because she had ‘cancerous cells’, but that she was actually having her contraceptive coil removed so she could get pregnant for Giggs for financial reasons. “She denies that that was a plan at all,” Daw said.
“You have got to decide whether you can trust or believe what she says.” He added how Ms Greville can be ‘incredibly manipulative when she wants to be’. Daw said there was ‘no evidence of Giggs controlling anything she ever did’.”She was earning good money, she was independent,” he said. “She had her friends around her.”
“This is a woman who is extremely self confident and in control.” Daw described claims of an alleged assault in a Dubai hotel in 2017 as ‘absolutely ridiculous’. Greville alleges she was ‘dragged’ naked out of the room by Mr Giggs, while he says she was bruised during ‘rough s*x’.
He dismissed her claims of Greville being a ‘slave’ to Mr Giggs and her account of lockdown being a ‘living hell’ was ‘entirely subjective’ to present a ‘false’ picture.
Speaking of the alleged headbutt in November 2020 during an incident at Mr Giggs’ home in Worsley, Daw told jurors:
“We suggest to you that it is simply utterly incredible, that there is an attack with a headbutt in the way described.
“He argued a ‘minor’ injury to her lip was not consistent with a forceful headbutt alleged.
Daw said Mr Giggs had chosen to give evidence, and described prosecutor Peter Wright QC’s cross-examination of him as being ‘almost a form of bloodsport’.
“Whatever you made of him, you may think he was in effect a rabbit in the headlights in that witness box, faced by Mr Wright,” Daw said, describing Mr Wright as ‘one of the leading prosecution barristers of the last 40 years’.
He claimed Mr Giggs ‘pretty much agreed to anything’, and said the ex-footballer was ’embarrassed to admit’ if he didn’t understand a word, or what was being asked of him.
“It was no less a mismatch than putting Mr Wright in goal against Mr Giggs at his absolute peak of footballing ability,” Daw said.
The lawyer also made reference to the evidence of Sir Alex Ferguson, who told jurors that Giggs had ‘fantastic temperament’ when he managed him at United.
“You remember Sir Alex saying to you he used to deliberately pick on Ryan Giggs in front of the players because he knew he could,” Daw said.
“Can you imagine being picked on by Sir Alex Ferguson in his prime in front of lots of other people?”No reaction, no loss of temper.”Concluding his speech, the barrister added:
“Members of the jury, take a cold hard look at the evidence in this case, and putting everything out of your mind, the only true verdict I suggest on all three counts must be not guilty.”
The Judge, Hilary Manley will conclude all the evidence in the case on Tuesday, before the jury is sent out to deliberate on its verdicts.
The trial continues.
