The former girlfriend of Ryan Giggs who has accused him of assaulting her said the former football star showed “red flags” early in their relationship, a court has heard.
In police interviews after she alleged the football coach and ex-player headbutted her, PR executive Kate Greville, 36, said it was “almost like was he was two people” when they were together.
Giggs is on trial in Manchester over allegations of controlling and coercive behaviour against Ms Greville between August 2017 and November 2020.
The 48-year-old is also charged with assaulting her and her younger sister, Emma Greville, at his home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, on 1 November 2020 – when the headbutting is alleged to have taken place.
Giggs has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
On Tuesday, the jury was shown a police interview with Ms Greville conducted weeks after she made the allegations.
She said they were both married when their affair started and she was unhappy in a controlling relationship with her husband.
“He was like a best friend, a soul mate, he was the one to save me from that marriage. It was more than a sexual thing,” she said. “It was like he was my best friend but there were definite red flags.”
Giving evidence at Manchester Crown Court from behind a curtain on Tuesday, Ms Greville said the affair became public in May 2016 and continued to be an on-off relationship despite her blocking him at times on her phone and emails.
She said despite saying he wanted to settle down with her, Giggs often “flipped” and was aggressive towards her. In one incident in a hotel room he dragged her by the wrists and threw her naked into the corridor, she said.
“It was like he was almost two people. It was like ‘is he a good person? Is he a bad person?’ I started to get horrendous anxiety,” she said.
Ms Greville said she was already planning to leave him by the time of the alleged headbutting in November 2020 after discovering evidence on his iPad of his string of alleged affairs “going back many years”.
She said Giggs constantly denied he was cheating on her but she “needed to know the truth” so she checked his tablet device and found he was in “full-on relationships” with eight other women.
By November she had planned to “disappear” from Giggs’s Worsley home where she had lived since the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, she said.
After an argument at a dinner at Manchester’s Stock Exchange Hotel (part-owned by Giggs and fellow ex-footballer Gary Neville) on 1 November 2020, Ms Greville said she decided to leave him that night.
She said Giggs “stormed out” after she told him about a man who had asked her out for a drink.
On following him to their hotel room she found he had packed her things, she said. “He was basically saying he was finishing with me and he didn’t want anything more to do with me.”
She said that after showing him messages she had screenshotted from his iPad “he got in my face and screamed and told me to get out. He was very drunk and very angry”.
Ms Greville said she headed alone to Giggs’s house where her sister Emma, was dogsitting. She said she called her sister on the way to ask her to pack her belongings in her car.
Giggs arrived at the property shortly after her and was angrier than she had ever seen him, she said.
When she tried to leave, he grappled with her, grabbing for her phone, she said.
During the altercation, she said, Emma grabbed Giggs by the waist but he pushed his arm back to try to get her off him and hit her in the jaw.
Ms Greville said Giggs told her he had called the police and was going to tell the officers Ms Greville attacked him and was a “psycho”.
“I said ‘I’m glad the police are coming because you attacked me and I will tell them what happened’. That’s when he came towards me and headbutted me in my face.
“He just came at me, grabbed me by my shoulders and headbutted me in my face.
“I said, ‘I can’t believe you have just done that. I was in shock. I fell backwards, my lip instantly swelled so I put my hands to my mouth. I could taste the blood. I was just in shock.
“All the other times he had hurt me, this was different. This was with real intent. He really wanted to hurt me.”
Ms Greville will continue to give evidence on Wednesday.
