Court of Appeal upholds verdict against Conor McGregor in rape suit

Ms Hand, also known as Nikita Ní Laimhín, was awarded nearly €250,000 in damages after a jury found that Mr McGregor had assaulted her in a Dublin hotel on 9 December 2018.

Mr Justice Brian O’Moore said the jury had been asked to “decide, in essence, between Mr McGregor’s description of a rather tawdry episode and Ms Hand’s claim that a criminal offence had been committed against her”.

In his 66-page judgment for the Court of Appeal yesterday, the judge rejected all grounds of Mr McGregor’s appeal.

Among the grounds of appeal was a challenge to the trial judge’s decision to present an issues paper to the jury which asked only whether Mr McGregor had “assaulted” Ms Hand and not whether he had “sexually assaulted” her.

Mr Justice O’Moore said the trial judge had “dealt with this issue head on” and made it clear to the jury that the case was about “whether or not Mr McGregor raped Ms Hand”.

Mr McGregor’s team also claimed that he had suffered unfair prejudice as a result of cross-examination about his “no comment” responses during Garda interviews, which they said should not have been admitted.

Mr Justice O’Moore said lawyers for Mr McGregor had failed to establish evidence of prejudice because the trial judge had told the jury “repeatedly and in clear terms” not to take that evidence into account.

The judge also addressed applications made and later withdrawn by Mr McGregor’s lawyers, seeking to introduce “new evidence” from two witnesses.

The applications were “abandoned at the last possible moment in circumstances which remain somewhat mysterious”, Mr Justice O’Moore noted.

“Certainly, no plausible reason has been advanced on behalf of Mr McGregor as to why these extremely important and contentious parts of his appeal have been cast aside,” he said.

He therefore awarded costs on a legal practitioner and own client basis to Ms Hand in relation to the withdrawn applications.

Having rejected all the grounds of appeal, Mr Justice O’Moore dismissed the appeal in its entirety.

Welcoming the ruling, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre chief executive Rachel Morrogh said: “We hope the court’s judgment closes the door on a protracted, traumatic and challenging road for Nikita Hand that was marked by attempts to discredit her, obfuscate the truth and derail her determination to seek justice.”