The ex-girlfriend of Ryan Giggs has told a jury her relationship with the former Manchester United footballer had a negative impact on her career.
PR executive Kate Greville, 36, said Giggs undermined her career ambitions on numerous occasions, as she took to the witness box again on Thursday to continue giving evidence in the trial of the former Welsh international at Manchester Crown Court.
Giggs, 48, denies using controlling and coercive behaviour against Ms Greville between August 2017 and November 2020, assaulting her, causing actual bodily harm, and the common assault of her younger sister.
When I originally said I was going to leave GG he didn’t want me to leave at all. That was a conversation. He told me in the office he didn’t want me to leave— Kate Greville
Chris Daw, QC, representing Giggs, told the witness one of the various issues she had raised against her former partner was that he had a negative impact on her career.
Ms Greville said: “Yes.”
By the summer of 2019, she agreed she was looking to leave her then employer, GG Hospitality, run by Giggs and former team-mate Gary Neville, and set up her own business.
In June 2019, Ms Greville messaged Giggs: “I need to talk about the start of my business. Not now but when we are together. I need some help with accounts … need your help and advice.”
Giggs replied: “I will sort everything baby xx.”
Mr Daw said to Ms Greville: “The position is you have suggested that Mr Giggs has been undermining your career ambitions on numerous occasions.”
Ms Greville replied: “Yes. Not all the time but there was a vast amount of time when he was.
“When I originally said I was going to leave GG he didn’t want me to leave at all. That was a conversation. He told me in the office he didn’t want me to leave.”
The jury has heard how Ms Greville had agreed to come back from the Middle East to live in Manchester and work for the hospitality company and she had a “six-figure” salary from the firm.
Earlier this week, Ms Greville told a jury Giggs grabbed her by the shoulders and head-butted her in November 2020 after she earlier confronted him about his serial cheating.
In the lead up to the alleged attack, she said she learned he had “full-on relationships” with eight women while they were together.
The discovery of messages “going back years” on Giggs’s iPad prompted her to decide to leave him, she said.
Ms Greville has told the jury she became “a slave to his every need and every demand”.
