Former Manchester United footballer Ryan Giggs’ ex-girlfriend has described living together during the Covid-19 lockdown as “utter hell”.
Giggs, 48, is on trial at Manchester Crown Court where he denies using controlling and coercive behaviour against Kate Greville, 36, between August 2017 and November 2020. He is also accused of assaulting her, causing actual bodily harm and the common assault of her younger sister.
On Thursday, PR executive Ms Greville continued to answer questions in cross-examination from Chris Daw, QC, representing the former Wales winger. Jurors heard that Ms Greville had described living with the Giggs during the first Covid-19 lockdown from March 2020 as “utter hell”.
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She said the pair moved in together for the first time after Giggs asked her to live with him at his property in Worsley, Greater Manchester.
Mr Daw asked if Ms Greville could have gone to spend time with her parents or someone else, to which she replied “yes”.
Mr Daw said: “Was one of the reasons you didn’t because actually you wanted to spend time with Ryan in his rather larger house?”
Ms Greville replied: “I wanted to stay with Ryan, not because of his house but because we had just started the relationship again.”
Mr Daw then suggested that she would not have stayed with Giggs "if he had been a serial and violent abuser".
Ms Greville said: “It was a cycle of abuse that made me feel insecure. I kept going back, he kept promising the world. 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.”
Mr Daw played two videos to the jury which showed the couple during lockdown – one in which they exercised together and another rapping along to the 50 Cent song In Da Club. Mr Daw put it to Ms Greville that lockdown was obviously hard but the pair were doing normal things “much of the time” and having fun.
Ms Greville said: “It was not all fun. It doesn’t mean he was being nice to me all the time.
“At the start of lockdown it was fine but it got progressively worse.”
The court also heard how during lockdown the couple took part in online family quizzes, wine tasting via Zoom and had Michelin-starred chefs bring in food. Ms Greville said there were arguments, including one involving loading the dishwasher.
She told the court: “He was making me feel like I was stupid, the way I was loading it. I had to do it exactly the way he wanted to do it.
“That’s just one example of many.”
Mr Daw said: “You suggest in your various accounts that lockdown was a period of living hell.”
Ms Greville replied: “I felt like I was losing my mind. I was having panic attacks.
“It was a horrific time for me.”
Mr Daw questioned Ms Greville over her claims Giggs effectively isolated her or affected her relationships with friends and family. She said: “His impact on how I was feeling – it made me not want to interact with my friends as much and tell them what was going on, most of the time I kept everything to myself, which obviously affected my relationship with my friends.”
Ms Greville said she “didn’t frequently spend time with [her] family,” but her sister would regularly come to the house. She said: “She helped around the house, that’s why [Giggs] liked her.”
Mr Daw pointed out a number of photos of Ms Greville on holiday with friends in 2019 and 2020, saying it was a “naked lie” Giggs did anything to stop her seeing them. Ms Greville replied: “He was creating really difficult relationships with these people.
“There’s many more months and weeks that I have a relationship with my friends that can be difficult. That’s just a holiday, or a long weekend.”
Ms Greville said by September 2020 her relationship with two of her close friends was “definitely souring”. Mr Daw said: “Can I suggest to you that the person who made it difficult was you, not Mr Giggs?”
Ms Greville said Giggs would frequently flirt with one of her friends in front of her and claimed he asked if it made her jealous.
She added: “He wasn’t like that 24/7, every minute of every day, otherwise I would have got out of that situation.
“He peppered it with nice things and doing nice things – he wasn’t every second of it horrible.”
On Wednesday, the court heard how Giggs sent racy pictures to his ex-girlfriend, who claimed she became “a slave to every need and every demand” of the former Wales manager. On Tuesday (August 9), the court heard how Giggs allegedly had “full-on relationships” with eight women during the period when he was with Ms Greville.
She also claimed he was “almost like two people” during their relationship and how she saw early “red flags" in his behaviour. Giggs denies all the allegations and the trial is continuing.
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