Woman who won civil rape case to sue over appeal

A woman who won a civil case against Conor McGregor is to sue him and two other people for damages alleging they engaged in malicious abuse of court processes.

In November, McGregor was ordered to pay £206,000 in damages plus costs to Nikita Hand, who accused him of raping her in a hotel in Dublin in 2018.

McGregor had intended to call Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins to give evidence at his appeal before withdrawing the application.

McGregor lost his appeal on Thursday against the finding that he sexually assaulted Ms Hand.

The appeal was based around several issues arising from the civil trial at Dublin’s High Court last year.

They included reference to the question “did Conor McGregor assault Nikita Hand?” being asked of the jury on the issue paper.

McGregor’s legal team said it should have specified sexual assault.

McGregor also appealed on an issue around the handling of his answers in interviews with gardaí (Irish police officers).

His legal team explained that the jury heard McGregor gave about 100 “no comment” answers to gardaí.

At the beginning of the process, Ireland’s Court of Appeal was told that McGregor had withdrawn an application to have new evidence entered at the appeal.

The proposed evidence was from couple Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins.

A previous preliminary hearing was told that they claimed to have witnessed a row between Ms Hand and her former partner Stephen Redmond in December 2018.

The court heard McGregor believed the new evidence suggested that bruising on Nikita Hand’s body could have been caused by her former partner.

In an affidavit, Ms Hand had described the allegations as untrue and lies.

The senior judges said it was “somewhat mysterious” that what they described as an “important and contentious” part of the appeal had been “cast aside”.

They awarded Ms Hand costs in relation to this aspect of the case.

Speaking outside court on Thursday, Ms Hand said she was grateful for the support she has received throughout the civil action.

“This appeal has retraumatised me over and over again, being forced to relive it, what happened has had a huge impact on me,” she said.

Ms Hand added: “To every survivor out there, I know how hard it is, but please, don’t be silenced.

“You deserve to be heard, you also deserve justice. Today, I can finally move on and try to heal.”