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The jury in the trial of Ryan Giggs has been discharged after failing to reach verdicts on whether he attacked and controlled his ex-girlfriend and assaulted her sister.
The former Manchester United footballer stood trial accused of assaulting his former partner Kate Greville, causing actual bodily harm, and using controlling and coercive behaviour against her from August 2017 to November 2020.
He was also charged with the common assault of Ms Greville’s younger sister, Emma.
The 12-member jury was sent out to consider its verdicts on Tuesday 23 August before one juror was discharged last week due to illness.
After being told to reach unanimous verdicts, Judge Hilary Manley gave a majority direction on Tuesday and said she would accept verdicts on which at least 10 of the 11 jurors agreed.
However, on Wednesday, the jury of seven women and four men said they had failed to agree verdicts on any of the charges against Giggs.
The ex-Wales manager was accused of deliberately headbutting Ms Greville at his house in Worsley, Greater Manchester, on the evening of November 1 2020.
The pair had been involved in a row at the Stock Exchange hotel in Manchester earlier that evening, where she had confronted him about his alleged affairs, the court heard.
After they returned separately to the home they shared, Ms Greville alleged that Giggs put his hands on her shoulders, looked her “straight in the eyes” and headbutted her in the face, causing her lip to bleed.
Emma Greville claimed she was elbowed in the jaw by Giggs after she had earlier tried to get the footballer off her sister, and that he had threatened to headbutt her.
However, Giggs told the jury at Manchester Crown Court that he and Kate Greville had accidentally “clashed heads” during a “sort of tug-of-war” over a mobile phone.
He denied deliberately elbowing her sister or threatening to headbutt her, and broke down in tears in court as he described his night in a police cell after his arrest as the “worst experience” of his life.
After Ms Greville claimed she found evidence that Giggs had at least eight affairs during their relationship, the ex-footballer told the court his “love cheat” reputation was justified, and he had been unfaithful to all his partners, but denied using controlling or coercive behaviour.
Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson appeared as a defence witness at the trial, telling the court that Giggs had a “fantastic temperament” and he had never seen him lose his temper.
The jury also heard poems written by Giggs to Ms Greville during their six-year on-off relationship – including one in which he said she made him “as hard as a totem pole”.
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