He is the most decorated footballer of the English game but Ryan Giggs may celebrate the end of his court case more than any medal he won on the pitch.
Almost 1,000 days after he was arrested on suspicion of assault and domestic abuse, the former Manchester United player was told on Tuesday that the charges had been dropped because his ex-partner, Kate Greville, no longer wished to give evidence.
The original trial last summer had “taken its toll” on Greville, Manchester crown court was told, and without her testimony prosecutors decided there wasn’t a realistic prospect of conviction.
Giggs was charged with using coercive and controlling behaviour. Two further charges of assault, against Greville and her sister Emma, were also dropped as the judge, Hilary Manley, formally found Giggs not guilty in a hearing lasting less than five minutes.
Giggs, 49, was not in court to celebrate the outcome – but in reality it is a case without winners.
The former footballer, who quit his “dream job” as Wales manager after his arrest, admitted in court last year that he had sent streams of expletive-laden, abusive, aggressive and at times threatening messages to Greville, 38, during their “toxic” on-off relationship.
He admitted under oath that he had never been faithful in any of his previous relationships, including to his wife – the mother of his two children – whom he cheated on with his sister-in-law for eight years and then, three years later, began an affair with Greville.
Under cross-examination, Giggs was asked about his messages to Greville, including one email that said: “I’m so fucking mad right now I’m scaring myself because I could do anything.”
“That was your threat that you sent to this woman?” asked the prosecutor, Peter Wright KC. “Yes,” said Giggs. “It wasn’t an idle threat, was it?” asked Wright. “No,” said Giggs. “What were you suggesting that you could do?” asked the barrister. “I don’t know,” said Giggs. “Well, help us,” said Wright. The defendant stared back silently at his interrogator, helpless and lost for words.
But it was not Giggs’s morality under the microscope, it was whether he committed the criminal acts alleged: using coercive and controlling behaviour on Greville over a period of three years, and of assaulting her and her younger sister on 1 November 2020.
After deliberations lasting more than 23 hours, the jury was discharged after failing to reach verdicts. It was an unsatisfying conclusion for all involved.
Giggs’s barrister, Chris Daw QC, had accused Greville of telling “so many lies” that the allegations could not possibly be true.
The alleged head-butt was “something that was created”, he told the jury, while claims of psychological abuse were examples of “exaggeration and twisting” by a “scorned” woman who was furious about his infidelity.
It may not be surprising that Greville did not wish to put herself through a second trial, which had been due to start in two weeks.
Domestic abuse charities had seen the case as a “watershed” moment for the relatively novel charge of coercive control, which was introduced in 2015 to explicitly criminalise a form of abuse that may be non-physical but can cause significant harm.
The charge remains little understood – one of the first questions asked by jurors in the Giggs trial was: “What is gaslighting?” – and its conviction rate is poor.
Office for National Statistics figures show only 1,403 people were prosecuted in the year to March 2021, despite police recording almost 34,000 offences. Fifty-two per cent of the 1,403 people charged went on to be convicted in 2019, according to a Crown Prosecution Service review published in 2021.
Giggs will now seek to rebuild “his life and career as an innocent man”, his barrister told the court on Tuesday. He will no doubt be welcomed back by the world of football and may return to coaching sooner than even he expected.
