Former Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs on Thursday August 11 2022 (Steven Allen/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)Ryan Giggs’ ex-girlfriend has denied a secret plot to get pregnant by the former Manchester United star but admitted she lied to him about a cancer scare.
Kate Greville is accused of wanting to be “tied together” with Giggs for life through a child, even if their on-off relationship came to an end, and was questioned on Thursday after texts with Giggs and friends shortly before the break-up.
Ms Greville has accused Giggs of coercive and controlling behaviour during their romance, including bouts of violence and agression.
Chris Daw QC, for Giggs, suggested the PR executive, 36, had continued to have unprotected sex with Giggs after having a contraceptive coil removed, despite already knowing he had cheated on her with several women.
Ms Greville told a friend “I need a plan” and vowed in messages that she was “not walking away with nothing”, Manchester crown court heard.
“The plan was to become pregnant by Mr Giggs”, said Mr Daw, to which Ms Greville replied: “No absolutely not.”
She said references to “planning my attack” was about “getting away in secret so he can’t find me, harass me, and I wouldn’t go back”, she said.
On “walking with nothing”, Ms Greville said she was talking about a dog she and Giggs had got together.
In one of her messages to Giggs, Ms Greville said: “I had a smear test when you were away and I have cancerous cells”, adding that she has to go to hospital.
Giggs replied: “OMG”, asking Ms Greville: “How did you not tell me?”
She told him of “high grade dyskaryosis” – pre-cancerous changes to cervix cells – and added: “I don’t want to talk about it again.
“This is something I want to deal with on my own.”
However Mr Daw said the medical appointment Ms Greville had was to have her contraceptive coil removed.
“I wanted to get him off my back”, said Ms Greville, accepting it was a lie. “It’s awful, I regret saying this thing. But I needed to say something to get him off my back.”
She then faced down suggestions that she had continued to have sex with Giggs after the coil was removed.
“You were having active, regular, and very enthusiastic sex with Mr Giggs throughout this time including after you had your coil removed”, said Mr Daw, suggesting: “It doesn’t really make sense to have a baby with someone you consider to be a violent, coercive and controlling individual.”
Ms Greville replied: “It doesn’t make sense at all, because that’s not what the plan was.”
Ms Daw suggested a baby would come with financial support from Giggs, leaving them “tied together, whether a couple or otherwise, pretty much forever.”
“I know”, Ms Greville replied. “I would never have done that because that’s not what I wanted.”
Earlier, Ms Greville says the former Manchester United footballer “made me feel like it was my fault” when he threw her naked out of a hotel room.
She claims she was “gaslighted” by the 48-year-old star during their relationship, which included alleged bouts of violence, anger, and coercive control.
The PR executive, 36, said Giggs threw a bag containing her laptop at her head during an incident at the five-star Stafford Hotel in St James’s on December 6, 2019, before allegedly kicking her out of bed and ejecting her naked into the corridor.
“Mr Giggs threw a bag at my head with a laptop in it which caused my head to swell and bruise”, she told police.
“He kicked me out of bed and threw me out of the hotel room naked, again.”
She later added: “He kicked me in the back so hard I flew off the bed and landed on the floor.”
Under cross-examination from Ms Daw, Ms Greville accepted Giggs went to collect her the following day when she returned from a wedding in Shrewsbury, as he pointed to apparently friendly messages.
“He didn’t have to personally come to collect you. He could have arranged a taxi for you”, said Mr Daw.
Ms Greville replied: “He could have but he felt guilty for what he had done the night before.”
Pointing to the messages between the two, Mr Daw said: “Apart from the fact that you have a hangover, there is nothing else in these messages to suggest he has violently assaulted you the night before.”
She replied: “No, that’s because he made me feel like it was my fault.”
Jurors at Manchester crown court have been told Giggs says the hotel room row was sparked when Ms Greville accused him of flirting with a woman he had been paired with for a crazy golf competition.
But he denies any violence, and disputes her version of events.
Ms Greville told 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 said: “That’s all just lies, isn’t it?”, and Ms Greville replied: “No, absolutely not.”
Giggs is accused of controlling and coercive behaviour against Ms Greville between August 2017 and November 2020, as well as assaults on her and her younger sister in November 2020.
Ms Greville has claimed Giggs occasionally called her “Stacey”, the name of his ex-wife, as an insult when he wanted to criticise her behaviour and drinking habits.
Mr Daw told the court Giggs denies the allegation, and says on one occasion he “turned to you and said Stace…then Kate – he corrected himself – he was about to call you his ex-wife’s name.”
He accused Ms Greville of being “extremely angry” about the incident, which was a “very unfortunate slip of the tongue which caused you to go ballistic”.
Disputing the suggestion, she replied: “No, that’s not what happened.
“What started the whole argument was when he said I was a liability when drunk on the way back to the hotel.”
The court also heard how Giggs and Ms Greville moved in together in March 2020, during the first pandemic lockdown, and jurors were told of regular bike rides, enjoying food from a Michelin starred chef, and making a rap video.
Asked why she had moved in when accusing him of controlling behaviour, Ms Greville said they went through cycles of abuse and togetherness.
“We were back in the relationship, back into that cycle”, she said. “He promised me things, same things as in the past, he promised we would get a family, live together, I desperately wanted that. I wanted that to be a reality.
“Stupidly I went back again. I’m ashamed of it, I’m hugely ashamed of it, but I did.”
Ms Greville was challenged over pictures of her enjoying foreign holidays to Greece, Portugal, and Ibiza, spending time with friends, and she accepted Giggs had not stopped her from working or keeping a flat in Manchester.
But she insisted Giggs made relationships with friends “difficult”, including flirting with a friend in front of her and blocking her pals’ phone numbers.
She told jurors the alleged control was not “24/7”, but insisted: “I felt like I was losing my mind, I was having panic attacks, it was a horrific time for me, mentally. It was a horrendous time for me.”
Giggs denied headbutting Ms Greville in the face, insisting she could only have been injured in a “minor” accidental clash of heads.
She said she was involved in a staged picture for The Sun newspaper two weeks after the incident, and told the court she agreed to it to stop paparazzi photographers from chasing her and her family.
“You were setting up for public consumption a completely staged photograph where you were deliberately trying to look like something serious had happened to you”, said Mr Daw.
“Not in terms of the injury”, replied Ms Greville. “It was what it looked like.”
Denying she was promoting a “false story”, she added: “I was trying to stop the stories and stop the paparazzi and photographers turning up at the doorstep every day.”
Ms Greville also denied “enhancing the appearance of the injury using make-up for the purpose of the photograph”.
In the final exchange of her evidence, prosecutor Peter Wright QC read out emails between Giggs and Ms Greville after she says she was subjected to a bout of violence after catching him cheating.
She told him: “You are vile, go to hell you absolute scank, you are a liar, you are a cheat, a narcissist, a manipulator, you are controlling, you are aggressive, you are violent, you are a disappointment.
“Know, f*** off out of my life.”
Giggs replied correcting her grammar saying “Now, not know love”, adding: “That angry you can’t write. Chills.”
Ms Greville then told him: “You have actually just tried to trivialise what you did. Been speaking to Nicky have you, or your other cheating friends.
“You poor things, all agreeing it’s not that bad what you did. You don’t give a f***about my feelings. That last message proved that once and for all.”
Giggs told her: “Give the therapist a call Kate”, and then told her: “Nah, I don’t run off to my friends like you do.
“You’re right, I don’t give a f*** about your feelings. But your hatred tonight is on another level. That bad it’s funny.”
Mr Wright finished by saying: “Two days later, he say ‘I miss you so much’.”
Giggs denies all the charges against him. The trial continues.
