Conor McGregor's appeal in his Dublin sexual assault case has failed.
Conor McGregor has lost his appeal against the civil jury finding in favor of an Irish woman, Nikita Hand, who claimed she was raped by the UFC star in Dublin hotel in December 2018.
The three-judge Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds for appeal Thursday in Dublin. Hand was present for the ruling, McGregor was not.
McGregor denies Hands’ claims, insisting they had “vigorous” and consensual sex.
As part of his appeal, McGregor’s team claimed that the trial judge incorrectly directed the High Court civil jury to decide whether he “assaulted,” rather than “sexually assaulted” Hand.
Justice Brian O’Moore — who sat on the three-judge panel alongside Justice Isobel Kennedy and Justice Michael McGrath — said the appeal court had no doubt that the effect of the civil court judge Justice Alexander Owen’s charge was that Hand’s allegation against McGregor was that he raped her.
O’Moore claimed it was “unreal” to suggest the jury would have been confused due to the “brutally clear” way the trial judge had framed the allegation.
Another core ground of the appeal was that the trial judge had erroneously permitted a line of questioning pertaining to McGregor’s multiple “no comment” responses he gave to investigating officers after providing them with a preprepared statement in response to the allegations.
This ground was also dismissed as the Court of Appeal offered various instances where the trial judge warned the jury about not making adverse inferences against McGregor from his no comment replies. The jury were also told to disregard certain "no comment" answers as having no evidential value.
According to the judge, with regard to his appeal efforts, McGregor failed to show a real risk of an unfair trial and his side had not been deprived of the right of an effective cross-examination.
Hand’s lawyers opposed the appeal and urged the court to allow the November 2024 jury decision that McGregor had assaulted her — and its award of €250,000 damages to her — to stand.
An order requiring McGregor to pay Hand’s estimated €1.3 million ($1.58 million) legal costs was stayed pending the outcome of the appeal. The court today ordered that Hand should get her costs in the High Court and appeal court against McGregor.
Withdrawn evidence
McGregor had initially sought to introduce new evidence to the appeal from a couple, Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins, who were neighbors of Hand’s at the time of the incident.
O’Reilly, in a sworn affidavit, claimed to have witnessed Hand being pushed and potentially kicked by her then-partner hours after she returned home from the hotel where a civil jury found that she was raped by McGregor.
Claiming she saw the incident take place from her own home, O’Reilly swore that although she did not see any blows being landed, by the body movement of Hand’s partner, she believed that he kicked Hand after he pushed her.
Hand described O’Reilly’s and Cummins’ claims as “lies.”
Earlier this month, McGregor’s legal team told the Court of Appeal that they were withdrawing the application to submit the claims as new evidence.
In response to this, Hand’s lawyers asked that the matter be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions to investigate perjury. The three-judge court confirmed that it would be referred to the DPP.
According to the Irish Times, “the normal procedure when such referrals are made is that the materials are sent by the DPP to An Garda Síochána (Irish police) and the latter then considers whether they involve possible perjury.”
Category: General Sports
