‘Teary-eyed’ Ryan Giggs ‘went to neighbour in his slippers begging her to “sort out” his girlfriend’

Ryan Giggs was in his slippers and ‘virtually crying’ when he knocked on his neighbours door in the pouring rain and asked her to ‘sort out’ his girlfriend and phone the police, a court heard today.

Before the argument that ended in an alleged headbutt, the former Wales midfielder banged ‘very loudly’ on the door of Linda Cheung and told her his girlfriend had accused him of cheating on her.

Mrs Cheung said her reaction was: ‘Oh Ryan, not that again.’

‘He asked me to help him. He said words to the effect of Kate had been accusing him of seeing other women and he wanted me to go and sort her out.’

She said that as the rain poured down, the ‘distressed’ Giggs asked her: ‘Can you call the police? She’s got my phone. She won’t leave.’

She told him she would not ring the police but offered him her phone if he needed to use it, she said Giggs did not respond and just stared at her before walking back to his property.

In a statement to police, read out by court, Mrs Cheung told how Giggs had ‘tears in his eyes’ when he knocked on her door.

She said: ‘He was at my door virtually crying. He never went outside with his slippers on. I was thinking it must be urgent. He’s come out of the house in the rain in his slippers.’

Ryan Giggs’ lawyers today denied the ex-Manchester United star deliberately elbowed his ex-girlfriend’s sister in the jaw during a bust-up at his £1.7million mansion.

His barrister, Christopher Daw QC, today suggested any contact between the ex-footballer and Emma Greville as she tried to separate him from her sister was accidental.

The former Wales midfielder, 48, is on trial accused of assaulting ex-partner Kate Greville and her sister Emma during an incident at his home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, in November 2020.

He denies the charges, as well as using controlling and coercive behaviour towards ex Kate during their ‘toxic’ six-year on-and-off relationship. He is on trial at Manchester Crown Court.

Today in the trial, Emma Greville told jurors that Giggs’s elbow ‘made contact’ with her face during the incident. She said at the time she had tried to separate Giggs and Kate Greville, who were engaged in a row.

Emma also told jurors that Giggs had threatened to ‘headbutt’ her after ‘grabbing’ her sister by the shoulders and ‘headbutting’ her with ‘major force’ during the row. 

In cross-examination, Mr Daw said any connection between Giggs and Emma was accidental as Giggs ‘backed away’ from her sister Kate.

He said: ‘There was no deliberate elbow.’ But Ms Greville answered ‘there was’. Ms Greville also admitted that she did not see how her sister and Giggs ended up on the floor prior to the alleged headbutt.

She told the court this morning that Giggs’ face was level her sister’s when he was lying on top of her.

The lawyer said that wasn’t the case and said Giggs had fallen and was ‘simply trying to get back up and move backwards.’

He asked Ms Greville: “Did you see him putting his arms up to protect his face from being hit by your sister?’ She replied ‘No’. 

It comes as Emma Greville claimed how Giggs told her ‘I’ll headbutt you next’ during the row at his home in Worsley, Greater Manchester.

Ms Greville at the property on the night of the alleged assault as she was dog-sitting for the couple while they were on a night out in Manchester city centre. 

Emma told the court that while at the house she received a message from her sister telling her: ‘Pack my stuff in the car, we’re leaving tonight’.

The message was sent as her sister returned home from the Stock Exchange Hotel after ‘confronting’ Giggs about his ‘cheating’.

Emma said she started packing her sister’s belongings into a car, before Giggs tried to call her on her phone.

She told the court that Giggs returned home 15 -20 minutes after her sister in a ‘visible mood’ and ‘was also very drunk’ and began collecting Ms Greville’s belongings before taking them into a hallway.

After hearing Giggs and her sister argue downstairs, Emma said: ‘Ryan came into the bedroom and told me to sort out my sister. I went downstairs to find Kate in the hallway, hugging the dog, upset, crying.

‘Ryan said “say your goodbyes, you won’t ever see him again” to me and Kate. It was said in a snide manner that he had the power to keep the dog when he knew that dog was Kate’s.’

She said Giggs and her sister began arguing and he ordered them both to leave. Emma said she took the dog to the other room and heard her sister and Giggs arguing over who had Giggs’ phone.

Recalling the moment Emma said she was struck by Giggs she continued: ‘I went into the hallway and saw Ryan’s legs sticking out the doorway. 

‘I went into the boot room to find Kate on her back and Ryan on top of her. Ryan was trying to grab Kate’s phone from her. His face was in line with her face. I can’t recall what she was saying but from her facial expressions I could tell she was in pain.

‘Kate said to me “Get him off me” so I put both arms around his waist. And as she was using her legs to push him off, I was pulling. 

‘As I was pulling him up, he was standing up and he turned to his right and his elbow touched my jaw and as a result I let go. It was not in a gentle manner, it was a “get off me” manner for me to get off holding Ryan.’

Asked what her reaction was Emma said: ‘Shock. I was upset. I immediately called my parents.’

She also told the court that Giggs threatened to headbutt her moments after he had headbutted her sister.

She said: ‘They were arguing about the phone and I said to Ryan “Just give her the phone back and then we’ll go. I told him “I saw you on top of her and grab her phone so I know you have her phone. ‘He called me a f***ing liar.

‘Kate said to Ryan “See I’ve had proof”. She knew that I’d seen what happened. At that point he didn’t say anything. He’d gone from annoyed to extremely angry. 

‘I think I asked him “why?” I couldn’t recall exactly what he said. At that moment he put both hands on Kate’s shoulders and with force used his head to headbutt her in the face.

‘Afterwards he told me it was my fault that he’d headbutted Kate and turned to me and said “I’ll headbutt you next”.

‘He was extremely angry. I felt fear as he’d just headbutted Kate and I thought he’d do the same to me.’

Recalling her sister’s reaction after being struck, Emma said: ‘Kate fell to the ground screaming, covering her face.

‘He (Giggs) walked towards the kitchen and didn’t say much.’

Emma said she was asked by her sister to call the police and now a lot calmer, Giggs pleaded with her not to.

She added: ‘He said “Don’t call the police, think about my daughter. Think about my career.’

Earlier Emma told the court that the pair had been involved in a ‘serious argument’ blew up while they were in Scotland.

She said she had accompanied her sister, Giggs, and two of his friends on a trip north of the border to go and buy a dog and noticed the pair ‘bickering’ while in a pub.

She told the court that there was a ‘frostiness’ in the couple’s relationship, which she said had started as ‘loving’ but had become ‘distant’.

Giving evidence in the former Manchester United star’s assault and controlling behaviour trial, she said: ‘On the second night (in Scotland) we were in the pub and they’d been bickering. I don’t know what about. 

‘I went to the toilet and came back and Ryan wasn’t sitting at the table and one of his friends was not at the table.Kate was upset and talking to the friend who remained at the table.’

Asked by Mr Wright QC, prosecuting, where Giggs was, she replied: ‘Kate said his friend had taken him outside. I could just tell way Kate was acting they’d had a serious argument.’

Describing the change in her sister’s relationship, Emma said: ‘It went from a loving relationship to being distant. You could feel the frostiness between them.’

Said said she had seen ‘verbal conflict’ but not physical until the night of the alleged headbutt on November 1 2020

It comes after the court was today told how Kate Greville told a friend that bruising on her wrist was because of ‘rough sex’ with the former football star the night before.

Ms Greville met friend and boss Elsa Roodt a day after an alleged assault at a hotel in Dubai in 2017, in which she claims she was ‘dragged out of her room naked’ after she accused the ex-Manchester United star of seeing another woman.

PR boss Ms Roodt – giving evidence from a TV link from Dubai – today told Manchester Crown Court that she met with Ms Greville the following day in her office.

Ms Roodt said: ‘She (Ms Greville) was very upset. She had been crying on and off and I noticed there were bruises on her arm. I could see them.’

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, asked her: ‘When you saw the bruises on her arm, did you speak to her about them?

Ms Roodt replied: ‘Yes, I asked her where she got the bruises.’ She continued: ‘She said after the argument they had, they ended up having quite rough sex, and the bruises were from that.’

Ms Roodt, who had employed Ms Greville to work in the Abu Dhabi office of her PR firm at the time, said she also noticed bruising again on Ms Greville’s arm on a separate occasion in Dubai in February 2020.

She said that Ms Greville had been ‘crying all night.’ She said: ‘She was very upset. She seemed very sad. She had bruises on her arm.’

The PR chief said Ms Greville told her that this time ‘Ryan got physical with her the night before in the hotel.’

Former Wales midfielder Giggs, 48, is charged with assaulting former girlfriend, PR executive Kate Greville, causing her actual bodily harm during an argument at his £1.7million home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, on November 1, 2020.

He is also charged with common assault of Ms Greville’s younger sister, Emma Greville, during an incident on the same day and of coercive or controlling behaviour over their six-year on-and-off relationship.

Ms Roodt had earlier told how she had to call the company’s internet provider to block Giggs’ email as it was ‘very intense’. She said: ‘It was interfering with her work so we had not other options but to block his emails’

Ms Roodt said that when Ms Greville first came to live in Abu Dhabi away from Giggs she started to ‘really come out of her shell’, adding: ‘she was really bubbly, really happy and we went out.’

However when Ms Greville and Giggs rekindled their relationship, Ms Roodt said: ‘She seemed a lot more worried. Her social pattern was a lot less. We didn’t spend much time with her.’

Mr Wright QC added: ‘You referred to her appearing nervous, how did that manifest itself? In what sort of behaviour?’

Ms Roodt responded and said :’She would be completely obsessed with her phone and constantly being available at all times.’

Yet when the relationship ended, Ms Roodt said her employee was ‘lighter, happier’.

Cross examining Ms Greville, Chris Daw QC defending Giggs, asked Ms Roodt if she knew if Ms Greville and Giggs frequently enjoyed ‘rough sex’ but she said she did not know.

Ms Roodt admitted she was never present at any arguments between Ms Greville and Giggs and had only met the former Wales boss ‘maybe three times.’

Ms Roodt confirmed one of those occasions was at a wedding in Spain involving Ms Greville’s friends in 2017. Asked if Giggs was ‘friendly, sociable and kind’ at the event, Ms Roodt replied: ‘Yes.’

It comes after jurors were on Friday shown police bodycam footage of Giggs being arrested in a ‘blood-stained shirt’ after telling officers how he ‘hit’ his ex-girlfriend Kate ‘in the lip’.

The court heard how the pair had earlier argued at dinner after PR executive Ms Greville ‘accused’ him of ‘couple of things’ before returning alone to the property, where they then rowed over their five-month-old golden retriever – ‘Mac’.

Ms Greville previously told the court she had found evidence on an iPad that Giggs had engaged in ‘full-on’ relationships with eight other women during their six-year on and off relationship, and initially told police at the scene the number was as high as 12.

The officer said how Giggs, who admitted that he had been drinking that night, ‘had blood around his mouth’ when he arrived at the former Wales midfielder’s property. The officer said how he found Ms Greville sitting on floor of the kitchen ‘visibly upset’.

In the footage, Giggs, seen wearing a white shirt with a blood mark on it, responds to say he and Ms Greville, 38, had been out for a meal and a ‘few drinks in town’, while her sister looked after their dog at the house.

The ex-Wales midfielder tells the officer that, following an argument, he had asked his ex-partner to leave the property and the pair had ‘got into a little bit of a tangle’.

He then tells the police he tried to get his phone off her during the incident and there had been a ‘struggle on the floor’. Giggs alleges to the police ‘she kicked me’ and ‘bust my lip’. 

In the footage, Giggs tells the officer ‘We had an argument and she said ‘I’m taking the dog’. We recently had a puppy, he’s in the garage. ‘He’s my puppy, no it’s not he’s mine’, that kind of thing.’

He then tells the officer that he ‘stupidly’ refused to hand over Ms Greville’s mobile phone which he had taken off her, before saying: ‘I hit her in the lip’, before accusing Ms Greville of ‘kicking’ him ‘in the head’ and ‘busting his lip’.

Later bodycam footage shows the officer cautioning a calm-looking Giggs – who is not put in handcuffs – before he is walked to a police van and locked in the back.

On Friday, jurors also heard two dramatic 999 calls made after the footballer’s alleged assault. During the calls, Ms Greville is heard shouting in the background: ‘Oh my god it’s so bad,’ while her sister says: ‘There’s blood everywhere’.

During the 999 recording, the call handler asks who the alleged offender is, prompting Emma to say: ‘Ryan Giggs. The footballer Ryan Giggs.’

The astonished call handler then replies: ‘The Ryan Giggs?’ 

It comes after Ms Greville last week denied under cross-examination from Giggs’s lawyers that she had ‘planned’ to get pregnant with his child as their relationship broke down.

The court heard messages shared between Ms Greville and a friend in which he said: ‘I am not walking away with nothing’.

Jurors were also told how she had visited hospital to get her contraceptive coil removed, after telling Giggs she was going due to ‘cancerous cells’ discovered during a smear test.

Giggs’s lawyer, Chris Daw QC, said: ‘Your plan was to get pregnant by Mr Giggs.’ Ms Greville said: ‘No, absolutely not.’

On Friday – the fifth day of the trial – jurors were played a recording of Emma Greville’s 999 call with the police following the alleged assault on her sister.

Emma, asked by the call handler why she is calling, says:  ‘Assault. He’s headbutted her.’ 

Swearing can then be heard in the background, along with crying and an argument between Giggs and Ms Greville.

Emma then says: ‘Can you come quickly?’, with the call handler asking: ‘Does she need an ambulance?’

In the recording, Emma then says: ‘He’s just headbutted in her face. ‘What? Ryan, I am saying anything I want to f***ing say. You have headbutted my sister. I don’t care if your daughter is 17, I don’t care about your daughter.’

The call handler then ask: ‘What’s he called?’ prompting Emma to reply: ‘Ryan Giggs.’ Giggs can then be heard shouting something inaudible in the background. She then responds: ‘It will be on the news, because you’ve just headbutted my sister.’ 

Giggs is then heard in the background saying: ‘She’s a psycho. She’s a psycho’. After hearing crying in the background, police ask: ‘Why is she crying?’

Emma replies, ‘She’s in pain,’ prompting the call handler to say: ‘Why?’ Emma says: ‘Because he’s headbutted her.

Later, police ask: ‘What’s his name? Emma replies: ‘Ryan Giggs. The footballer Ryan Giggs.’ The call handler then says: ‘The Ryan Giggs?’ Emma: ‘Yes. Can you come quickly please?’

The court also heard from PC Billington, who was one of the officers at the scene. 

After watching the video, PC Billington was questioned by prosecutor, Peter Wright QC.

Mr Wright QC said: ‘Mr Giggs was then taken to the police vehicles, and escorted to the police station, the court.’ Pc Billington: ‘That’s correct.’

Mr Wright QC continued: ‘At the time that you spoke to him, did you form the impression he’d been drinking?’

‘I believed he was intoxicated,’ the police officer answered.

Asked why he had formed that opinion, PC Billington added: ‘His slow response to my questions and his eyes were slightly glazed.’

In cross-examination by defence barrister, Marianne Alton, PC Billington was asked: ‘Was he calm throughout?’

PC Billington agreed.  The defence did not argue that Mr Giggs had not been drinking, but Ms Alton asked Pc Billington: ‘But he wasn’t stumbling about?’

‘No,’ the officer answered. She added: ‘He spoke coherently?’

PC Billington replied: ‘He responded coherently, yes.’

On Friday, jurors were shown police body-cam footage of Ms Greville speaking to police in the aftermath of the alleged incident.

In the footage, she tells officers: ‘I found he had been cheating on me for the last six years with ten or 12 women. Every time I found something it got worse, I found his iPad, kept it all to myself for two weeks’. Ms Greville claims that Giggs had began ‘flipping his s**t’ and attacking her after she confronted him.

On the first day of his trial this week she told police in a later interview that he had eight other ‘full-on relationships that had gone on constantly from 2014’.

The evidence emerged as the former Manchester United star’s legal team accused Ms Greville of having ‘stopped contraception in a plot to get pregnant by him’.

She denied claims by the footballer’s lawyers that she ‘planned to get pregnant’ as their relationship broke down, the court heard.

On Friday, under cross examination, Ms Greville had admitted to lying to Giggs about having cancerous cells detected in a smear test so she ‘would not have to have sex with him’. As their relationship came to an end she also messaged a friend saying: ‘I am not walking away with nothing’, amid claims she was trying to have his baby.

The messages were sent after the PR executive began to ‘plan’ leave Giggs, having allegedly found evidence on the footballer’s iPad that he had conducted ‘full-on’ affairs with eight other women during their relationship.  

The court was told how in October 2020, having found the messages, Ms Greville messaged a friend saying: ‘I need a plan’. Referring to the message, Christopher Daw QC, representing Giggs, 48, asked Ms Greville: ‘What were you talking about?’

Ms Greville told the court: ‘I needed a plan to get away in secret so he couldn’t find me, so he wouldn’t harass me. And how to let him know how I had found all those things out.’

Mr Daw said: ‘And walking away (with nothing)?’ Ms Greville replied: ‘I am talking about my dog. One hundred per cent, just the dog.’ Mr Daw said: ‘Your plan was to get pregnant by Mr Giggs.’ Ms Greville said: ‘No, absolutely not.’ 

The court also heard how Ms Greville messaged her friend saying that she was getting her contraceptive coil removed that week. The court heard Ms Greville later did have the coil removed, having told Giggs she was going to hospital after a smear test showed ‘cancerous cells’.

Chris Daw said: ‘The truth is you were going to have your contraceptive out.’

Ms Greville told the court: ‘I was getting my coil out and I also wanted a STD test. I wanted him off my back. I completely regret saying these things but I needed to say something to get him off my back and for him to leave me alone.’

Mr Daw said: ‘The true position is there was no medical emergency for the coil to be taken out.’ Ms Greville replied: ‘There was no medical emergency but it (the coil) was coming to an end and it needed taking out.’

‘If I was saying I had cancerous cells then I would not have to have sex with him.’

Mr Daw, refering to text messages between the pair, said: ‘I am going to suggest you were having active, regular and very enthusiastic sex with Mr Giggs at this time including when you had this coil removed.’ Ms Greville said: ‘I disagree.’

It comes as the court heard claims from Ms Greville that Giggs had kicked her in the back ‘so hard’ that she ‘fell off the bed’ during a stay at the Stafford Hotel in London in December 2019.

Ms Greville had previously alleged that during the incident she was thrown out of their room by Giggs, who then ‘threw a laptop’ at her head

The PR executive also previously told Giggs’s trial at Manchester Crown Court how the defendant had thrown her naked into a corridor during a separate incident at a hotel Dubai in September 2017. 

It comes as Ms Greville was quizzed by Giggs’s barrister about her decision to continue her relationship with the ex-footballer, despite her claims of physical and mental abuse.

Mr Daw also questioned her decision to move into the ex-Wales winger’s £1.7million mansion at the start of the first Covid lockdown in March 2020.

But a tearful Ms Greville said she was ‘ashamed’ of the decision to ‘keep going back’ to Giggs, telling jurors: ‘It was a cycle of abuse that he promised the world. He was very convincing, he could be very charming.

‘I went back again stupidly and I am ashamed of that, hugely ashamed of that, but I did.’

Mr Daw also took aim at Ms Greville’s suggestions that Giggs had interfered in her relationships with her friends in the lead up to the end of their relationship in November 2020 – when Giggs is accused of ‘headbutting’ her and assaulting her sister Emma.

He said in the months before their break-up, Ms Greville had enjoyed three holidays, to Ibiza, Portugal and Greece – the latter two of which she had flown out with her friends.

But Ms Greville replied: ‘He was creating really difficult relationships with these people. There’s many more months and weeks that I have a relationship with my friends that can be difficult. That’s just a holiday, or a long weekend.’ 

She also accused of the former Manchester United star of ‘flirting’ with her friend in ‘front of her face’ and then asking: ‘Does that make you jealous?’. 

Mr Daw also addressed claims made by Ms Greville earlier in the trial that she had found evidence on an iPad that the former footballer had engaged in ‘full on’ relationships with eight other women while with the PR executive.

He suggested that Ms Greville’s decision to leave the former footballer was ‘nothing to do with coercion, violence or anything like that – it was just to do with his cheating.’ Ms Greville said it was also about his ‘coercion and control and manipulating.’ 

Last week the court heard accusations from Ms Greville that Giggs was having ‘full-on’ affairs with eight other women during their ‘toxic’ six-year on-off relationship.

The PR executive made the discovery after accessing the football star’s iPad having ‘made it my mission to find out the truth’ about his other lovers, she told police.

She said how, during what she called a ‘cycle of abuse’, Giggs ‘dragged’ her out of the bedroom of a five-star hotel – leaving her naked in the corridor – after she accused him of ‘manically’ flirting with other women during a night out.

He then threw a bag containing her laptop at her head, giving her a ‘massive lump’, Manchester Crown Court heard.

When she attempted to leave him over his alleged flings and ‘controlling’ behaviour, Giggs would ‘bombard’ her with up to 50 messages an hour and threatened to ruin her career, she claimed.

Eventually she got into his iPad as she ‘needed to know the truth’ – and the ‘reality’ of his cheating was ‘way worse than I could imagine’, she said.

Giggs stood down in June as manager of the Wales national team following his arrest. 

The court heard that Ms Greville was employed by PR firm Tangerine for part of the alleged period of controlling behaviour and also by Giggs’ own company, GG Hospitality.

Giggs’ legal counsel, Chris Daw QC, said his client encouraged her career ambitions and went on to introduce most of her clients when she set up her business herself and earned a six-figure salary.

He said Ms Greville was ‘always completely financially independent’ and was free to travel and see her friends.

Giggs stood down in June as manager of the Wales national team following a period of leave since November 2020.

During his time at Old Trafford, Manchester United won 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies, four FA Cups and three League Cups.

He won 64 caps for Wales and is co-owner of League Two side Salford City.

Giggs met Ms Greville in 2013 after she helped promote his Hotel Football venue, launched with ex-United teammate Gary Neville.

He divorced his wife Stacey in December 2017.  Giggs found love again with lingerie model, Zara Charles, 33, who has ‘supported’ him through the charges.

The trial continues.