His skill at football was thing of beauty..at home he had an uglier, sinister side’

FOOTBALL hero Ryan Giggs has a “more sinister side” to his character and “lost control” by headbutting his lover at his £1.7million mansion, a trial heard yesterday.

- Chris Riches

The ex-Man Utd winger won 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League trophies, four FA Cups and three League Cups in his 963 appearances over 23 years.

But the city’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard that for three years the co-owner of League Two side Salford City subjected girlfriend Kate Greville, 36, to “gaslighting” and coercive behaviour.

Giggs, 48, allegedly attacked Ms Greville and her younger sister Emma in Worsley, Greater Manchester, headbutting Kate in a tussle over a phone.

He denies using controlling and coercive behaviour and assault causing her actual bodily harm, plus the common assault of Emma.

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said Giggs’s private life involved a “litany of abuse, both physical and psychological, of a woman he professed to love”.

On Giggs’s career, he said: “He played locally for Manchester United and internationally for Wales. He was idolised, and still is, by his adoring fans and supporters. On the pitch his skills were abundant and a thing of beauty

“Off the pitch in his personal life at home or behind closed doors, there was a far uglier and more sinister side to his character.”