Conor McGregor loses appeal over civil jury finding that he raped Nikita Hand

CONOR MCGREGOR HAS lost his appeal against a civil jury finding that he raped a woman in a Dublin hotel in 2018. 

In November last year, McGregor was deemed liable for sexually assaulting Nikita Hand in the Beacon Hotel on 9 December 2018, with the jury in the case awarding Hand over €248,000 in damages.

McGregor subsequently appealed the jury’s decision and had been seeking a re-trial of the civil case against him.

A stay was put on an order for McGregor to pay the damages and Hand’s legal costs, estimated at €1.3 million, following the outcome of the appeal.

In its ruling this afternoon, the three judges of the court – Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, Mr Justice Brian O’Moore and Mr Justice Michael MacGrath – dismissed the appeal in its entirety.

Ms Justice Kennedy said that the court will award Hand her costs in both the High Court and the appeal cases. Hand was present in court for the ruling. McGregor was not in court.  

McGregor had sought to introduce new evidence from a couple, Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins, who were neighbours of Hand at the time of the incident. 

O’Reilly swore an affidavit claiming to have witnessed, from her own home, Hand being pushed and possibly kicked by her then-partner hours after she returned home from the hotel where a civil jury found she was raped by McGregor.

O’Reilly also swore that while she did not actually see Hand being kicked on the ground, by the body movement of her then-partner, she believes he kicked Hand after he pushed her.

Hand said the claims were “lies”.

At the Court of Appeal earlier this month, his lawyers told the court that they were withdrawing the application to submit the claims as new evidence.

After Hand’s lawyers asked that the matter be referred to the Director of Public Prosecution to investigate perjury, the three-judge court confirmed that it would refer it to the DPP.

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The appeal then proceeded without the new claims. 

‘Completely vindicated’

In summarising the ruling, Mr Justice O’Moore dealt with each of the grounds of appeal individually. 

On the attempt to submit fresh evidence, the judge said that Hand was entitled to all of her costs in relation to this. He said the motion was abandoned at the last moment “in circumstances which remain somewhat mysterious”. 

He said Hand was “completely vindicated in the position she took” in relation to the fresh evidence, which she said was lies. He said she had been part of “one of the most hard-fought trials in recent years” and that it was difficult to see any reason why she should have to have any liability for costs on this ground of the appeal.

One of the central grounds for appeal related to the issue paper that was presented to the jury, which asked whether McGregor assaulted Hand. His lawyers had argued that the fact that the paper did not specifically ask if McGregor sexually assaulted Hand “leaves open the possibility” that some of the jurors did not think they were being asked about sexual assault”. 

Mr Justice O’Moore said the trial judge, in his charge to the jury, had made clear that the central question that they were being asked was whether McGregor had assaulted Hand by raping her. 

“It is simply unreal to suggest that faced with the issue framed in such a brutally clear way by the trial judge, any member of the jury became confused about the meaning of question one on the issue paper,” he said before dismissing this ground for appeal. 

Another ground of the appeal was in relation to McGregor’s ‘no comment’ answers given to questions posed to him in a Garda interview. Counsel for McGregor had argued that this should not have been admitted. 

Mr Justice O’Moore said while the trial judge did not tell the jury to disregard the no comment answers, he did tell them repeatedly that they should not consider the evidence as supportive to Hand’s case. 

He said a real risk of an unfair trial “has not been demonstrated by Mr McGregor, and this ground therefore fails”.

After summarising the rest of the ruling, Mr Justice O’Moore said: “I therefore dismiss the appeal in its entirety.” 

James Lawrence

The Court of Appeal also dismissed an appeal by McGregor’s friend, James Lawrence, for his costs in the case.

The jury in the civil trial found that Lawrence, of Rafter’s Road in Drimnagh, did not sexually assault Hand.

He had alleged that he had consensual sex with Hand twice in the Beacon Hotel on 9 December 2018. Hand told the court that she had no memory of this and described it as “a made-up story”.

Following the jury’s decision, Lawrence was not awarded any costs by trial judge Mr Justice Alexander Owens, who said it would be “completely inappropriate to do so”. The judge said it was difficult to see how there could be any separate legal costs incurred by Lawrence in respect of any solicitor, with McGregor conceding during the trial that he had paid for Lawrence’s costs.

Lawrence appealed this decision. 

In summarising the ruling, Mr Justice O’Moore said that while the Court of Appeal disagreed with some aspects of how the trial judge dealt with Lawrence’s costs, it had reached the same conclusion that he should not be awarded costs, but for different reasons. 

He said that McGregor had paid Lawrence’s costs and that there was no reason to believe that Lawrence bears any legal obligation to pay McGregor some or all of these costs.

“Given that fact, one wonders what the purpose of rewarding costs of Mr Lawrence is,” the judge said.  

He said the purpose of awarding costs “is not to provide a windfall to somebody who has successfully defended an action against them”. 

He said if Lawrence does choose to repay McGregor, he will have received “a bounty of several hundred thousands of euro for his troubles”. 

The judge said the arrangement between McGregor and Lawrence “remains shrouded in mystery”.

He said if the court were to award Lawrence some or all of his costs, it would mean Hand would be making a payment “initially to an individual who gave inaccurate evidence against her, and ultimately to the man who raped her”.

Mr Justice O’Moore said he would dismiss Lawrence’s appeal “as I have, for rather different reasons, come to precisely the same decision as did the trial judge as to whether or not Mr Lawrence should be awarded his costs against Ms Hand”.

“In my view, he should not.”

Speaking outside the court following the ruling, Nikita Hand said the appeal had retraumatised her “over and over again”. 

“Today I can finally move on and try to heal,” she said.

Written by Jane Moore and posted on TheJournal.ie