Ryan Giggs says a bruise on his ex-girlfriend’s arm was sustained during “rough sex” and not as a result of a hotel room assault, a court has heard.
Kate Greville claims she was dragged naked across a Dubai hotel room and locked out in the corridor by Giggs during an alleged bout of violence, alleging she sustained a bruised wrist in the incident.
However Giggs says the claim is “completely manufactured” and a “pack of lies”, with a jury at Manchester crown court being shown “loving” messages sent between them in the days after the September 2017 incident.
In one message, Ms Greville tells Giggs: “Tan is coming along nicely. My sex bruise is coming along nicely too!!”
Ms Greville said a friend, Elsa, noticed her bruised wrist and she blamed it on sex because she was “embarrassed” to reveal it was the result of domestic violence.
“I told her it was as a result of sex”, she said, telling jurors her message to Giggs was a reference to that.
“I was making light of the fact I had told Elsa it was a sex bruise. It’s 100 per cent wrong, but I was making light of it.”
Christopher Daw QC, for Giggs, called her evidence “ridiculous”, and insisted sex was the real reason for her injury.
“It was a bruise caused by rough sex the two of you enjoyed a lot”, he said.
Ms Greville replied: “That bruise wasn’t caused by rough sex.”
When she said she could not remember receiving any bruises during sex with Giggs, the barrister produced a series of messages between the former couple about their sex life.
“I’m sorry to have to take you through this”, he said, showing jurors Ms Greville’s message which read: “I want you so badly, rough.”
She went on: “I want it to hurt a little. Not in a weird way, I just want you to shock and surprise me.”
When Giggs called it “a fine line”, Ms Greville replied: “We just have to have fun finding that line then.”
The court also heard Giggs had sent Ms Greville a picture of an Agent Provocateur sex toy – a paddle - and talked of being “a bit more assertive” in the bedroom.
“We never used that paddle. Not once. Or any”, said Ms Greville.
Earlier, the court heard Ms Greville claims Giggs treated her like a “slave to his every need and demand” during their relationship.
She has accused the former Manchester United ace, 48, of coercive and controlling behaviour over three years when they were dating.
The PR consultant, 36, says Giggs cheated on her with eight different women, but gaslighted her when she confronted him over the affairs.
She claims he was violent and aggressive at times during the romance and headbutted her in the face when she confronted him about years of cheating and resolved to leave him.
Facing cross-examination from Giggs’ barrister on Wednesday, Ms Greville said she would face “consequences” if she did not follow the former footbaling star’s instructions.
In a statement, she had described herself as a “slave to Mr Giggs’ every need and every demand”, and told jurors: “That’s what I felt like.
“When Ryan said to do something, I would do it. If there was resistance sometimes, he made me feel like I had to do everything he said, otherwise there would be consequences.”
Ms Greville said Giggs “had a negative impact on my relationships with my family” and “interfered with my ability to interact with my family”.
“He damaged relationships with my friends and isolated me from certain people”, she said from the witness box.
“He wasn’t consistently horrible. Overall it made me lose confidence and self-belief.
“He was hot and cold, like two different people, making me feel two extremes, consistently.
“He made me feel good, made me feel bad, made me feel good, made me feel bad.”
She denied speaking to journalists since the breakdown of the relationship and Giggs’ arrest in November 2020, and when asked if she was looking for compensation, she replied: “Absolutely not.”
The relationshp began when both Giggs and Ms Greville were still married, and she told the court she believes they first slept together in December 2014.
She accepted “the majority of the time he was kind and loving”, but said Giggs was “not nice” for the last year and a half of their relationship.
“Towards the end of the relationship, it was pretty much relentlessly awful”, she said.
Describing the start of their romance, Ms Greville told jurors: “He love-bombed me.
“I literally thought he was the best thing in the world, we had this incredible relationship, a fairytale, we would end up together, having a family. It was going to develop into something really serious and stable. That’s how it felt at the time.”
She said it was a “turn-off” that he used to be a footballer, but she was attracted to his success and how he “had worked hard to get where he was”.
On Tuesday, Ms Greville described the moment she says she was assaulted by Giggs in a showdown at his £1.7 million mansion in Worsley, Greater Manchester.
She had returned to the house to pack her belongings and leave, but says she was interrupted by a drunk and “very angry” Giggs.
Ms Greville claims Giggs pinned her to the ground and elbowed her younger sister Emma when she tried to intervene. She said the former Wales winger “came from nowhere, grabbed my shouders, and headbutted me in my face”.
When she went to call the police,. She said Giggs told her: “This will ruin me and it will ruin you. Think about my job, think about my career, think about my kids.”
Ms Greville has claimed Giggs “pressurised” her for sex during their relationship, but also described alleged incidents where he stormed out of a restaurant and angrily told her to leave.
Giggs, who faces claims he bombarded Ms Greville with irate messages during their romance, turned up unannounced at her home and gym, threw a laptop across a hotel room at her, and once dragged her naked into a hotel corridor, denies the charges.
He says he never “crossed a line” into violence and accuses Ms Greville of lies and exaggeration. The 13-time Premier League title-winner and former Wales national manager denies using controlling and coercive behaviour between August 2017 and November 2020 and accusations of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault.
The trial continues.
