Ryan Giggs assault trial: Jurors retire to consider sentencing

The jury in Ryan Giggs’ trial has retired to consider its verdict on allegations that he was a violent friend who subjected his partner to years of psychological and sometimes physical abuse.

Giggs, the most decorated player in Manchester United history, is accused of hitting Kate Greville’s head when she tried to break off their relationship on November 1, 2020.

Giggs faces another charge of controlling and coercive behavior towards Greville during the three-year period prior to the night of the alleged violence and a separate offense of assaulting her younger sister Emma.

Judge Hilary Manley, presiding over the trial at Manchester Crown Court, asked the seven women and five men on the jury to consider each charge separately, before sending them on Tuesday afternoon to begin their deliberations.

The judge also ordered the jurors not to allow any sympathetic thoughts to influence their verdict after seeing Giggs and Greville break down in tears in the witness box.

Addressing the jury, the judge said, “Was this, as the defense suggests, a relationship that had ups and downs, albeit more ups and downs, which eventually went off the rails, only because of the complainant’s inability to accept Ryan Giggs’ serial femininity?”

And did Kate Greville take revenge on this woman by twisting and exaggerating their routine arguments in terms of control, violence and abuse?

“Or was the relationship much darker and sinister in which a man abused and exploited his power over a weak woman and, when he realized that power was not working, physically attacked his partner and her sister?”

Giggs, the 13-times Premier League champion, resigned as Wales manager in June, having not been directly involved with the team since his arrest for hitting his head at his home in Worsley, Greater Manchester.

He denies all charges and Sir Alex Ferguson, his former manager, was among the witnesses who gave evidence.