Conor McGregor has lost his appeal against a civil jury finding in favour of Nikita Hand, who sued him over alleged rape of her in a Dublin hotel.
In its judgment on Thursday afternoon, the three judge Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal “in its entirety”. Ms Hand was in court for the ruling. Mr McGregor was not present.
Mr McGregor, who denied rape and claimed he had consensual and “vigorous” sex with Ms Hand in the Beacon hotel on December 9th 2018, had claimed the trial judge erred in directing the High Court civil jury should be asked to decide whether he “assaulted”, rather than “sexually assaulted”, Ms Hand.
Dismissing that ground of appeal, Mr Justice Brian O’Moore, sitting with Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy and Mr Justice Michael McGrath, said the appeal court had no doubt the overall effect of Mr Justice Alexander Owen’s charge was to tell them the central allegation by Ms Hand against Mr McGregor was he had raped her.
It was “unreal” to suggest that, after the trial judge had framed the issue in the “brutally clear” way he had, that the jury could have been confused.
Speaking outside the Four Courts in Dublin following the judgment, Ms Hand said “today I can finally move on and try to heal”.
She said she is “deeply grateful for everyone who supported me and for those who believed me and stood by my side throughout this long and painful journey”.
“This appeal has retraumatised me over and over again, I’ve been forced to relive it. What happened has had a huge impact on me.
“To every survivor out there, I know how hard it is but please don’t be silent. You deserve to be heard. You also deserve justice,” she said.
She thanked her legal team, solicitors from Coleman Legal and barristers John Gordon SC, Ray Boland SC and Siún Leonowicz BL, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, and “the three judges who delivered the decision today”.
Mr Justice O’Moore also dismissed another core ground of appeal that the trial judge erred in permitting a line of questioning concerning Mr McGregor’s multiple ‘no comment’ responses to investigating gardaí after providing them with a pre-prepared statement in response to Ms Hand’s rape claim.
The trial judge was alive to the fact the jury had to be warned about not making adverse inferences against Mr McGregor from his no comment replies and had warned them to that effect, he said. The jury were also told to disregard certain no comment answers as having no evidential value.
There was “an unimpeachable exposition” by the trial judge to the jury about the legal position relating to the no comment answers, he said. He told them repeatedly they should not consider the answers as supportive of Ms Hand’s case, he told them the answers were simply not evidence.
Mr McGregor had 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, the judge held.
Ms Hand was also entitled to costs at the highest solicitor-client level of the last-minute withdrawal, in mysterious circumstances, of two motions brought by Mr McGregor seeking to have fresh evidence admitted.
Lawyers for Ms Hand opposed the appeal and urged the court to allow the November 2024 jury decision that Mr McGregor had assaulted Ms Hand, and its award of €250,000 damages to her, to stand.
An order requiring Mr McGregor to pay Ms Hand’s estimated €1.3m legal costs was stayed pending the outcome of the appeal. The court today ordered Ms Hand should get her costs in the High Court and appeal court against Mr McGregor.
Mr McGregor had initially sought to introduce fresh evidence for his appeal which he said bolstered his insistence he was not responsible for bruising on the body of Ms Hand noted by a doctor who examined her on December 10th 2018.
The fresh evidence included from Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins, who lived across the road from Ms Hand in Drimnagh in late 2018. In an affidavit sworn last January, Ms O’Reilly claimed she had witnessed, from her home, a physical altercation between Ms Hand and her then partner Stephen Redmond in their home on the night of December 9/10th 2018.
In an affidavit, Ms Hand described her neighbours’ claims as lies and said Mr Redmond never assaulted her that night or at any time during their relationship.
After the application to admit the neighbours’ evidence was dramatically withdrawn by Mr McGregor’s side at the outset of the appeal on July 1st last, Ms Hand’s lawyers applied to have the matter referred for consideration of possible perjury, including possible induced perjury by Mr McGregor.
Senior counsel John Gordon said a referral would show the court’s concern about the “apparent abuse of its own processes”. The fresh evidence application was not just to adduce further evidence but to undermine Ms Hand’s reputation pending the hearing of the appeal, he said.
Having viewed materials in chambers, the judges agreed to refer the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and said it would inform the parties of the materials it proposed to refer.
It is understood the materials include affidavits of Ms O’Reilly, Mr Cummins and Ms Hand. They also include a booklet of documents provided by Ms Hand’s side to the appeal court on foot of which it was intended to cross-examine Ms O’Reilly and Mr Cummins about their sworn statements. Parts of the transcript of the appeal hearing related to the withdrawal application are also included.
According to court sources, the normal procedure when such referrals are made is that the materials are sent by the DPP to An Garda Síochána and the latter then considers whether they involve possible perjury.
The appeal court also dismissed a linked appeal by James Lawrence (36), Rafter’s Road, Drimnagh, against the High Court’s refusal to award him costs against Ms Hand after the jury found he had not assaulted her in the hotel after Mr McGregor had left.
During the civil trial, it was confirmed that Mr McGregor, who said Mr Lawrence was his friend, was paying his legal costs for the civil case.
Mr Justice O’Moore, while finding errors in how the trial judge decided the costs issue in Mr Lawrence’s case, said the court, for different reasons, had reached the same conclusion as the High Court that Mr Lawrence should not get his costs against Ms Hand.
The jury must not have accepted Mr Lawrence’s evidence of consensual sex between Ms Hand and Mr McGregor, the judge said. That, and the fact his costs were paid by Mr McGregor, would constitute special cause for not awarding costs to him against Mr McGregor. It was a factor to take into consideration that an award of costs to Mr Lawrence against Ms Hand meant the costs would ultimately go to Mr McGregor, the man who raped her, he said.
For those and other reasons, the court ruled each side should each pay their own costs, in the High Court and Court of Appeal, concerning Ms Hand’s claim against Mr Lawrence.
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