Girlfriend ‘wanted baby with Giggs for money’

Kate Greville refutes defence lawyer’s claims and tells court of ‘utter hell’ living with former Manchester United star.

Former Manchester United star Ryan Giggs is on trial for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Kate Greville. Picture: AFP

Ryan Giggs’s defence lawyer accused his former girlfriend on Thursday of trying to get pregnant in a plan to secure his financial support.

Kate Greville, 38, denied having “active, regular and very enthusiastic sex” with the former Manchester United star at the time she had a contraceptive coil removed in October 2020.

Greville sent messages to a friend that month saying: “I need a plan,” and “I am not walking away with nothing,” Manchester crown court was told.

The PR executive has accused Giggs, 48, of headbutting her and of using controlling and coercive behaviour against her between August 2017 and November 2020.

She was questioned by Chris Daw QC, Giggs’s barrister, who said: “Your plan was to get pregnant by Mr Giggs.” Giving evidence from behind a screen, Greville replied: “No, absolutely not.” She said she had been talking about “walking away” with her golden retriever puppy Mac in the text message.

Daw said: “If you had got pregnant with Mr Giggs, you would have anticipated a significant amount of support for a long period of time?” Greville said: “I would never have done that because that’s not what I wanted.”

Daw also accused Greville of “trying to get the public to turn on Mr Giggs” after she was shown in The Sun walking along a country lane with her dog with a bruise on her lip days after Giggs’s arrest in November 2020.

Messages showed days earlier that a friend had joked to Greville that she would sell the next picture. Greville replied: “We can set up a pic and get money for both of us.” She later joked that it could cover her legal costs and was read messages where she said “Me looking rough makes it look less staged” and “I think it’s good I look shit to be honest.”

Asked if the picture was staged, she confirmed that she did set it up but said she was trying to stop photographers turning up at her door every day, and that she never asked for payment.

Earlier the court was told that Greville had described living with Giggs at his home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, during the first Covid lockdown from March 2020 as “utter hell”. She said she had moved in despite “a cycle of abuse that made me feel insecure” because “he kept promising the world”.

She added: “He made me believe that he would not do it again and, stupidly, I went back. I am hugely ashamed of that but I did.”

During lockdown the couple took part in online family quizzes, wine-tasting on Zoom and had Michelin-starred chefs bring in food, the court was told.

Greville denied that she had got used to the lifestyle she had with Giggs, saying that she “didn’t want anything financially”. She added: “I could have that lifestyle myself, so it wasn’t the lifestyle he gave me.”

Daw played two videos to the jury showing the couple in lockdown. In one they exercised together in the garden; in the other they were rapping along to 50 Cent’s In da Club.

Greville said the clips did not mean “he was being nice to me all the time”, adding: “At the start of lockdown it was fine but it got progressively worse.”

Greville said that there were arguments, adding: “I felt like I was losing my mind. I was having panic attacks. It was horrific.”

Greville also denied that she was “planning to provoke an argument” on the night of the alleged headbutt after she confronted Giggs about his cheating at their home in Worsley on November 1, 2020.

The jury was played bodycam footage from police that showed a tearful Greville in the kitchen telling officers: “He’s hit me loads of times, this is not the first time … I’m not going to let him get away with it any more. He’s hit me so many times.”

It had been alleged earlier in the trial that Giggs had conducted eight affairs. However, the jury was told on Thursday that Giggs had cheated on Greville with up to a dozen women.

She told police: “Basically, I found a load of shit before I told him and kept it to myself.

“I found he had been cheating on me for the last six years with 10 or 12 women.”

Giggs has denied using controlling and coercive behaviour, assaulting Greville, causing actual bodily harm and the common assault of her younger sister.

The trial continues.

– The Times