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Anorak News | Ryan Giggs Faces ‘Jail’: Manchester United’s Model Of Discretion Refuses To Kiss ‘N’ Tell

Ryan Giggs Faces ‘Jail’: Manchester United’s Model Of Discretion Refuses To Kiss ‘N’ Tell

by | 11th, June 2011

RYAN Giggs is going to jail? So says the Daily Star on its front page.

It makes a change from news that Ryan Giggs is going to Wembley. Or Ryan Giggs is going to a hotel room in Manchester with your wife.

News is:

RYAN Giggs faces jail over the gagging order he got to cover up an affair with glamour girl Imogen Thomas.

That gagging order is the super-injunction blown away on Twitter and by an MP. Indeed, anyone who outed Giggs on Twitter still faces the possibility of legal censure. Might it be that the Twitter users who Tawatted Giggs end up in the same jail as their nemesis?

We read on:

Ryan Giggs could be prosecuted for perjury if judges think he misled them about his happily-married family man status to obtain his injunction.

Hold on. Didn’t Giggs admit to having seen Imogen Thomas three times in his appeal for an injunction against her broadcasting her story? And wasn’t she accused of trying to blackmail him for cash?

Didn’t the judge rule:

The evidence before the court at that point, therefore, appeared strongly to suggest that the Claimant was being blackmailed (although that is not how he put it himself). I hasten to add, as is obvious, that I cannot come to any final conclusion about it at this stage. I have to make an assessment of the situation on the limited (and untested) evidence as it now stands. (That is what is required by s.12(3) of the Human Rights Act, to which I shall return shortly.)

The Human Rights act is open to interpretation.

Imogen Thomas denies being a blackmailer.

So much for the facts. Back to the Daily Star, wherein Jerry Lawton tells us:

The crime carries a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.

The assumption is that because Giggs might have been shagging his sister-in-law, Natasha Giggs, the image of his being a family man was only an image? This assumes much: that he was cheating; his wife cares if he cheats; you can’t be a good family man if you shag others than your wife; and the law has a clear definition fo what ‘family man’ means.

The Star adds:

Lawyers say if Giggs is found to have deliberately withheld details of other affairs from the court he is open to prosecution.

Anorak is bamboozled by the law and vacillations. Wasn’t Giggs’ injunction against anyone talking about his alleged afffair with Imogen Thomas? It was. Why would any alleged shags with a member of his family affect that ruling?

Reading on:

D-Day for the £80,000-a-week star is November 7 when he will give evidence at a hearing to determine if the injunction should remain in place.

You might suppsoe D-Day has long gone. Natasha Giggs is not the subject of a legal restraint. She is free to speak. The Star adds:

He is sure to be grilled by Mr Justice Eady over the alleged flings. And he will face a blast from Sir Alex Ferguson, 69, for disrupting United’s season, which will be well under way.

And so it is that from a headline-making story about Giggs being jailed, the shocker runs rapidly out of steam to such a degree that we are told that a 37-year-old squad member’s sex life (born 29 November 1973) will damage Manchester United’s season. In much the same way news of Wayne Rooney’s alleged extra-martial sex with Jennifer Thompson damaged United’s last season… You know, the one in which they won the Premier League and reached the final of the Champions’ League.

What we need to make this story motor is an “expert:

One senior lawyer said: “He’s now in a very difficult position. The real danger comes if he is ruled to have withheld information from the court when applying for the injunction. That could be deemed perjury.The UK courts have never shied away from pursuing similar prosecutions even in the most high-profile cases.’’

Such is the massive levels of straw clutching in that line that the name of the “senior lawyer” is kept secret.

The paper then opens the casebooks. The three example are well chosen. On each occasion the liar has taken on the press and lost:

In 1999 former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Jonathan Aitken was jailed for 18 months for perjury during a libel trial against the Guardian.

Aitken gave us this delicious quote:

“If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it. I am ready for the fight. The fight against falsehood and those who peddle it. My fight begins today. Thank you and good afternoon.

And:

Two years later Jeffrey Archer got four years after he lied in a defamation hearing against the Daily Star.

The original story was that Archer had paid for sex with Monica Coghlan. Archer got £500,000 damages from the Daily Star. He lied. He got four years a jail.

The case was enlightened by the original trial judge, Mr Justice Caulfield, words to the jury on Mrs Mary Archer:

“Remember Mary Archer in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance? How would she appeal? Has she had a happy married life? Has she been able to enjoy, rather than endure, her husband Jeffrey?…Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel round about quarter to one on a Tuesday morning after an evening at the Caprice?”

And:

And five months ago Scottish politician Tommy Sheridan, 47, was sent to prison for three years for the same crime.

He took, on the News of The World. And once more the liar gave wonderful copy:

“We have over the last five weeks taken on one of the biggest organisations on the planet with the biggest amount of resources to pay for the most expensive legal teams to throw nothing but muck against me, my wife and my family. Today’s verdict proves working class people can differentiate the truth from the muck. The working class people on the jury have done a service to the people of Scotland and delivered a message to the standard of journalism the News of the World represents. They are liars and they have proved they are liars.”

What this has to do with Giggs is highly questionable. And, indeed, if there is one element missing from this tale of Giggs’ women it is the lack of words pouring from the man himself.

He says nothing. He remains silent. One thing is certain – if you are a woman who shagged Ryan Giggs, he won’t kiss ‘n’ tell. the man is the model of discretion…

imogen-thomas

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Imogen Thomas



Posted: 11th, June 2011 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink