Staff Reporter.
Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs will not face a retrial over domestic violence claims after prosecutors on Tuesday withdrew the charges.
Giggs, 49, was due to go on trial for a second time on July 31 after a month-long trial last year ended without the jury reaching a verdict.
He was facing charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm over an alleged headbutt on Ms Greville, 38, plus further counts of coercive or controlling behaviour against her and common assault against her sister Emma.
But, in a 10-minute court hearing, the prosecution offered no evidence and Judge Hilary Manley said: ‘I formally enter not guilty verdicts in respect of each of the three counts.’
It is also revealed today that the case began to fall apart in May, when Ms Greville said she did not want to testify due to the effects of the process on her ‘mental and physical well-being.’
However lawyers for Giggs said he ‘did not buy’ her reasoning, insisting the prosecution was put off by new information uncovered by the defence, including a cosmetic procedure to have lip fillers on or around the day of the alleged headbutt – several days before she was pictured with apparently swollen and bruised lips as a result of the alleged attack.
Giggs’ barrister Chris Daw KC said his client was ‘looking forward to rebuilding his life and career as an innocent man’.
Jurors had failed to reach a verdict following an original, 11-day trial last year, after 22 hours and 59 minutes’ deliberations. A retrial had been scheduled to begin on July 31.
The decision not to go ahead was revealed during the short pre-trial review hearing at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday morning, with neither Giggs nor Ms Greville in attendance.
Giggs is one of British football’s most-decorated footballers following his 24-year career at Manchester United and was appointed an OBE in 2007 before winning the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year in 2009.
He also won 64 caps for Wales between 1991 and 2007 and was appointed national manager in January 2018.
Giggs, who won 64 caps for Wales between 1991 and 2007, was appointed national manager in January 2018 and led the team to qualification for Euro 2020, which has been re-scheduled because of Covid-19.