I’m unable to resist attractive women, Ryan Giggs tells assault trial

In extraordinary testimony, disgraced football great admits he’s never been faithful in any relationship, says embarrassing ‘Blackmail’ email was just a joke.

Ryan Giggs admitted he was a “love cheat” and had never been faithful to a woman as he denied assaulting or trying to manipulate his former girlfriend.

Giggs, 48, made the revelation as he gave evidence yesterday at Manchester crown court, where he is accused of assaulting Kate Greville, 38, and controlling and coercing her during their relationship.

Giving evidence for the first time, the former Manchester United midfielder conceded that he was a “flirt by nature” who could not resist the opposite sex, “regardless of marital status”.

Chris Daw QC, Giggs’s barrister, suggested that his client was known around the world for two things: football and infidelity.

Daw asked: “In the course of your relationships with women, up to and including Ms Greville, have you managed to be faithful to any of them?”

Giggs replied: “No.”

The barrister continued: “If an attractive woman has shown you interest regardless of your marital status, are you able to resist?”

Giggs answered: “No.”

Prosecutors say Giggs headbutted Greville and struck her younger sister, Emma Greville, 26, in the jaw with his elbow at his mansion in Greater Manchester in November 2020.

Giggs’ ex-girlfriend Kate Greville.

He is also accused of using controlling and coercive behaviour against his former girlfriend, including bouts of aggression and violence.

Giggs denied ever attempting to control Greville and said he did not make her “a slave” to his every need, as she had claimed in evidence.

In a statement given to police after his arrest, he claimed Greville had at times tried to “control our relationship”, particularly when she was jealous. “She ordered me to message certain women with whom she incorrectly accused me of having an affair,” Giggs told police. “She dictated the content of the messages and watched me while I sent them.”

He added: “I feel extremely distressed, hurt and emotional by the way this relationship is being painted to be.”

In statements given to police, Giggs admitted that his “head clashed” with Greville’s during a “scuffle” over a mobile phone. “I am not sure if it was the face or head but I am sure it was not deliberate,” he told police.

Giggs added the couple had been together for four years and had had their “ups and downs”, but that the relationship was mainly “wonderful”.

Giggs told the court he first met Greville in about 2013 or 2014 while she was working for a PR company used by his businesses with Gary Neville, a former team-mate at Manchester United. “I thought she was attractive, I thought she was intelligent, I thought she was funny.”

While they were both married, they had sex for the first time on the night before a photoshoot in London for Cafe Football, a bar in Manchester, and “no longer than six months” later Greville left her husband, the jury was told.

Giggs on the pitch for Manchester United in 2003.

With his former wife Stacey Giggs in 2010.

Giggs said they were “falling in love with each other” and he moved out of the family home about a year later amid a “challenging” divorce.

Greville moved to Abu Dhabi in 2016 and he visited her several times, including at the Westin Hotel in Dubai in 2017, when it has been alleged Giggs dragged her naked across his room and threw her belongings into a corridor.

Giggs said he had told her to sleep on the sofa but that they then had sex and spent the night in the same bed.

Daw has suggested that bruises Greville claimed were from the incident were from rough sex and asked if this was regular. Giggs replied: “We had sex that . . . could get quite rough, but not anything weird, but just rough.”

Daw asked Giggs why he sent Greville an email with the subject “Blackmail”. He said it was “just a joke” and the attached video was of Kate “just dancing embarrassingly, something which was out of her nature, acting silly at a Christmas party.” Giggs, who denies all the charges, said he had never shared any private photos or videos of Greville.

The trial continues.

The Times