Ryan Giggs has admitted in court to playing with his ex-girlfriend’s emotions and threatening to “stalk you like mad” after she blocked his messages as their relationship disintegrated. The former Manchester United and Wales footballer told a court he would turn up unannounced at Kate Greville’s home, workplace and gym when she tried to split up with him. Giving evidence for a second day in his assault trial, Giggs broke down in tears as he described spending a night in a police cell as the “worst experience of my life”. He said he was “confused and scared” after being arrested for allegedly head-butting Greville during a “tug of war” over a mobile phone at his home on 1 November 2020. Under cross-examination by the prosecutor Peter Wright QC, Giggs admitted he could be “hot-headed” and “impetuous” and that his messages sometimes “distressed and alarmed” his then girlfriend. The jury heard that in an email to Greville after she blocked his phone messages, Giggs wrote: “Stop being a baby call me … Otherwise I will stalk you like mad and you know how good I am at that.” Asked by Wright whether he regularly turned up unannounced at Greville’s home, her workplace and her gym when the pair had fallen out, Giggs said: “Yes.” Another message from Giggs to Greville read: “Please reply because if you don’t – I take it you’ve blocked me on email too – I will come to yours and I will get in! Or wait until you’re leaving anyway. Look forward to hearing from you. Ryan.” He later said: “I ain’t gonna stop until you call me,” and on another occasion said: “What the fuck – blocking me? Fucking unblock me now!!!” Wright asked: “You would play with her emotions, wouldn’t you?” Giggs replied: “Yes.” In another email, Giggs called Greville a “horrible, horrible cunt just like Stacey” – referring to his ex-wife – and added: “You don’t deserve to be a parent … I hope your company fails too … I will only tell people what a horrible cunt you really are.” The former Wales manager, 48, denies assaulting Greville, causing her actual bodily harm, and the common assault of her younger sister, Emma Greville, at his home in Worsley on 1 November 2020. He also denies using controlling and coercive behaviour against Kate Greville between August 2017 and November 2020. Giggs told jurors he did not deliberately head-butt his then partner and that they accidentally “clashed heads”. He said Greville had been trying to retrieve her phone from his pocket when they came face to face in his kitchen. “It got more and more aggressive. We were facing each other. It was a sort of tug of war and then we clashed heads,” he said. Greville fell backwards, he said, and he could “quite clearly see that she was hurt”. Greville, 36, has told the trial that Giggs put both of his hands on her shoulders and head-butted her in the face. Giggs said the clash happened after an evening meal at the Stock Exchange hotel in Manchester, when Greville confronted him with allegations of cheating, which he denied. Giggs was asked how he felt when she accused him of head-butting her and said she would call the police. He said: “Confused and scared because now it looks like a situation where what happened was completely different and I was scared.” Giggs’s barrister, Chris Daw QC, asked him: “Did you at any stage put your hands on Kate’s shoulders and forcefully and deliberately head-butt her in the face?” “No, I didn’t,” Giggs replied. “Would you ever do such a thing?” Daw asked. “No,” Giggs said. Giggs said there was “no excuse whatsoever” for an email he sent to Greville with the subject line “CUNT!!!” after she told him she did not want him to join her on a trip to Scotland in June 2020. Jurors had heard that the email read: “Only an evil horrible cunt does that. Absolutely astonishing. Now I look an utter twat after telling three of my friends I’m going to Scotland at the weekend … I’m so fucking mad now I’m scaring myself because I could do anything.” Under cross-examination from Wright, Giggs admitted that this was meant as a “threat”. Asked earlier by Daw whether there was any excuse for using that “truly appalling” language, Giggs said: “No excuse whatsoever.” He added: “I can’t believe I used that sort of language to someone I was supposedly in love with.” The trial at Manchester crown court continues.