Nikita Hand’s consent, or lack of it, was the core issue in her civil action for damages against Conor McGregor and his friend James Lawrence over alleged assaults of her in the penthouse suite of Dublin’s Beacon Hotel on Sunday, December 9th, 2018.
The allegations of assault arose from her claim she was raped by McGregor.
Lawrence was sued because he later made a statement to gardaí saying he had had consensual sex twice with Hand after McGregor had left the hotel.
Hand told the jury she had no memory of sex with Lawrence and described it as a “made-up story”.
The hair colourist, her work colleague Danielle Kealey, Lawrence and McGregor were all driven in McGregor’s car by one of his security staff to the hotel, getting there about 12.30pm.
Both women were picked up in the car from Hand’s GerardPaul hair salon workplace in Goatstown where they ended up after partying all through the Saturday night, consuming alcohol and taking cocaine. They were still in a party mood.
How Nikita Hand won her battle against Conor McGregor
McGregor and Lawrence had been separately partying in the Krystle nightclub where he bought rounds for his “crew” and said there was cocaine available.
Lawrence said he had a few drinks but never takes cocaine and went home in a taxi before McGregor left at about 6 or 7am.
McGregor later that morning persuaded Lawrence to join him and the two “boisterous” ladies to “level” it up and all four went to the hotel.
In her civil case alleging assault by both men, the onus was on Hand to establish lack of consent on the balance of probabilities. Hand was adamant in her evidence: “I know what happened in that room.”
She said McGregor came on to her and she told him, “in a nice way”, that she “did not feel comfortable”, she knew his partner’s family, and her own partner was close friends with his partner’s brother. She was menstruating and wearing a tampon and would not have sex during her period, she said.
She did not want to have sex, she was there “to party and have a good time”.
McGregor, she said, “would not take no for an answer”.
Her evidence was both were fully dressed when he pinned her on to a bed in the hotel room, telling her “relax, babe” and “rubbing my face”, she put her arms up to keep him away but he kept pushing his weight down on top of her.
Just before that, when McGregor was in the en suite bathroom, he called to her to “suck on that”, meaning his penis, she said.
After he pinned her on to the bed, he put her in a choke hold three times, telling her now she knew how he felt in the octagon when he tapped the ground three times, she said. She was unable to breathe and, fearful she would not see her daughter again, stopped fighting and “let happen what was going to happen”.
After their encounter, a tampon was wedged into the top of her vagina and was removed later by a doctor who examined her at the Rotunda hospital sexual assault unit.
McGregor was vehement in his rejection of her account. Hand was “full of lies”, there was no rape, no “rough” sex, and the two had “vigorous”, “athletic”, “prolonged” and “fully consensual” sex in a multitude of positions, he said.
Hand, he said, came on to him, was an enthusiastic participant, and it was “all happy” without “an iota of distress” from her. There was no tampon and no discussion of one, he said.
Asked about a fight in Las Vegas two months earlier where he conceded to Khabib Nurmagomedov, he said he was beaten by “a neck crank”, which “to the untrained eye” looked like a headlock.
He rejected Hand’s evidence that he put her in an armlock or had referred to the octagon.
“I mean, how anyone could believe that of me as a prideful person would say, would highlight my shortcoming, it is not in my nature, it is a full-blown lie among many lies that have been said here,” McGregor said.
McGregor’s evidence was that he then fell asleep for a time until Hand woke him up and they had sex again before he left for home in Co Kildare about an hour later, taking Kealey with him.
Lawrence gave evidence that, after McGregor and Kealey left about 6.15pm, he had consensual sex twice with Hand, using condoms, before they left the hotel together in a taxi about 10.30pm. He said he had earlier had consensual sex three times with Kealey, also using condoms. Kealey’s evidence was they had sex once, using condoms.
Hand told the jury she had some memory of some conversation with Lawrence after McGregor left, she had pointed out some bruising on her to him and asked him, ‘Do youse all put a blind eye to what Conor does to women?’
Lawrence disputed she said that. He said she became upset after they had had sex a second time, she had pointed to a bruise on either her arm or leg and asked him what she was going to tell her boyfriend.
Lawrence said the bruise was a small one, nothing like the bruising on her he was later shown in photos, he told her not to worry about it and she cheered up.
Hand said she had no memory of having sex with Lawrence or leaving the hotel with him. She agreed CCTV showed the two going back up in the lift after McGregor left and later heading out of the hotel towards a taxi about 10.30pm.
In his charge to the jury, Mr Justice Alexander Owens said the case boiled down to who the jury believed, whether it was truth or lies. His own view was that some witnesses had lied but the facts were for the jury to decide, he said.
Consent is an aspect of the tort [a civil wrong causing harm or loss leading to legal liability] of assault, he explained. If a person proves they were subject by another person to non-consensual sexual activity, that is the tort of assault.
Non-consensual sexual activity involves a person “intentionally going beyond what the other person might be taken to have consented to, or proceeds to sexual contact such as intercourse when indifferent to the capacity of another person, or their wishes”.
Consensual sexual activity is a “two-way street”, sexual activity is by nature “a voluntary participatory activity in which both sides willingly engage”.
Submission is not consent, he said. To prove lack of consent, it is not necessary to prove the person resisted, tried to run away or raised the alarm. In many cases of non-consensual sexual activity, the victim may become “frozen” and feel overpowered.
He told the jury it was sufficient, if they were satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, a person claiming to be sexually assaulted was not a voluntary participant in the activity. A person subjected to a sex act may be asleep, unconscious, incapable of consenting because of alcohol or some other drug and resistance may be overpowered. Drunkenness is important and much of this case might be explained by consumption of alcohol.
People may have consensual sex while intoxicated, drunken consent is still consent, but the position is different when a person is so intoxicated as not to be able to exercise free and voluntary will and “have no clear idea what they are about”, the judge said.
In ascertaining a person’s sobriety at the time of an alleged assault, a jury looks at whether the evidence is sufficient to establish, at the time of sexual activity, that a person was so out of it as to be incapable of consent. That was an evidence-based inquiry.
That issue arose in relation to Hand’s case against Lawrence, the judge said. Hand said she was very drunk, too drunk to consent to sex with him. His case was she was not, that she came on to him when they left the hotel in a car driven by McGregor’s security, were kissing in the car, decided to return to the hotel to continue their intimacy, and were kissing in the lift on the way back up to the hotel room where he said they had sex. The jury could assess the CCTV, he said.
Hand’s evidence was that she has little recollection of what went on in the room, that she saw bruising on her arms and things came back to her about what had happened earlier and she got distressed, pointed out her bruises to Lawrence and asked him was he all right with how McGregor treats women and that Lawrence tried to make her feel better and got her a drink and food.
The CCTV in the lift showed Hand staggering around in a state of incapacity and engaging in “silly intimacies” that drunks sometimes engage in, the judge said. The jury had to decide whether the CCTV showed either Hand or Lawrence advancing on the other with sexual intent and if it was consistent with the state of mind each alleged or with intoxication.
That issue did not arise in relation to her case against McGregor, her case was that she was sober enough to realise what was happening to her, she resisted and made her lack of consent clear. McGregor’s evidence was they had engaged in prolonged bouts of consensual sex in a variety of positions and it was “all happy”.
In evaluating the evidence, the jury should be cautious about drawing conclusions about what they think a person sexually assaulted should or should not have done. They must decide the issue solely on the evidence, not on “preconceptions”, the judge said.
It does not necessarily follow that a person who has been sexually assaulted will complain to the first available person about what happened or attempt to flee from the aggressor. A person subject to a stressful event such as rape may respond to that event in ways “which may seem strange or irrational”, especially so when a person is befuddled by the consumption of intoxicants like alcohol and other drugs and may have fallen asleep after an event.
The sending of a photo on Instagram – a reference to Hand posting a photo of herself on Instagram in a red jumpsuit which McGregor had described as “slightly provocative” – is “not an invitation to be sexually molested”, the judge said.
The fact a woman engages in what might be described as risky activity which makes her easy prey for sexual predators by getting drunk and taking drugs or consuming drink and drugs on top of each other and wearing a risqué outfit does not mean they are up for sex, he said.
The jury cannot operate on a presumption that women who engage in such behaviours are sexually promiscuous, they must act on the evidence and forget about “preconceptions”, “lazy assumptions” or “victim blaming”.
In assessing the reliability of Hand’s evidence, there was no evidence her condition of panic attacks or her medication interfered with her recall or caused her to hallucinate or invent things, he stressed.
The jury could conclude that excessive alcohol can interfere with good judgment, that was “just common sense”. Excessive alcohol causes disinhibition, incoherence, sometimes anger or aggression, lack of awareness of what is happening around us, inability to think clearly, keep track of time or the number of drinks consumed, unsteadiness on the feet, tendency to talk nonsense, tendency to sleep and wake up disorientated, and fragmented memory of what went on the night before, the judge said.
The jury were entitled to consider the effect of this on the reliability of Hand’s evidence as to what went on with McGregor.
The jury heard Hand went to the home of her salon manager Eimear Brennan late on the night of December 9th and told her she had been raped. Brennan took photos of bruises on Hand but, at Hand’s request, later deleted them and they were not available for the case.
When Hand got to her home in the early hours on Monday December 10th, 2018, she told her then partner Steve she had been raped. He made a 38-minute secret recording of their conversation. In it, a tearful Ms Hand said she was raped and repeatedly said she cannot say who by. When Steve urged her to tell him and said nothing is going to happen, she said: “It is, it is, he says he will kill me.”
At one point, Steve said: “This shit doesn’t happen any more, it’s not a case of just shutting up and saying nothing. This thing of keeping quiet is not all right.”
On the morning of December 10th, Hand went to her mother’s home in pain and distress. Her mother called an ambulance and Hand was later referred to the Rotunda hospital’s sexual assault unit where a doctor examined her, recorded her as very distressed with bruising on several areas of her body and removed a tampon wedged into the top of her vagina.
Hand made a statement to gardaí in early January 2019 alleging she was raped by McGregor, leading to a Garda investigation and to McGregor attending, by arrangement, at Dundrum Garda station on January 17th.
McGregor provided a prepared written statement to gardaí, in which he strongly denied Hand’s allegations. He responded “no comment”, which Mr Justice Owens pointed out he was fully entitled to do, to more than 100 questions put to him by gardaí.
Before Lawrence made his statement to gardaí in February 2019 alleging he had consensual sex twice with Hand in the hotel, she had made no allegation against him.
Following the Garda investigation into Hand’s claims, a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) who decided in June 2020 there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. Hand, with the support of Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, sought a review but the decision was upheld.
The DPP, who carried out the review herself, told Hand a high standard of proof, beyond reasonable doubt, applies in a criminal case and she considered there was “no reasonable prospect” of conviction of either McGregor or Lawrence.
It was a complex case, she wrote, there were issues related to corroboration of Hand’s account, the amount of alcohol and drugs consumed and CCTV evidence which, the DPP said, would not tend to support evidence in relation to Lawrence.
Another complication was Lawrence’s claim to have had consensual sex with Hand after she was allegedly raped by McGregor, the DPP said.
McGregor being a well-known figure was not a factor in her decision, the director assured Hand.
Hand, who described herself as “completely devastated” at the DPP’s decision, initiated her civil case seeking damages against McGregor and Lawrence in October 2020.
The claim included for loss of earnings in the past and into the future on grounds including that anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) had limited her work options.
In evidence, she also expressed unease about continuing to live in Drimnagh. She no longer lives in a house there, valued at €430,000 and subject to a mortgage, she had bought with her ex-partner prior to the alleged assaults.
The case opened on November 5th and evidence was heard over eight days before the jury were sent out to consider their verdict.
In their verdict delivered on Friday afternoon on day 12 of the hearing, the jury found Hand was assaulted by McGregor and awarded her damages of €248,603.
They found Lawrence (35), of Rafter’s Road, Drimnagh, did not assault Hand.
The primary evidence in the case was from Hand, McGregor and Lawrence.
CCTV evidence, described by the judge as among the “silent witnesses”, was also available. It showed all three, and Kealey, going up to the hotel suite from a lift in the car park. All appeared in good spirits. The four are also seen going down in the lift about 6.15pm to the car park, when McGregor left, taking Kealey with him to give her a lift home.
Lawrence and Hand are seen on CCTV in the car park, going back up in the lift, around the hotel lobby apparently trying to get a card to return to the suite, in the lift with their arms around each other at one stage, and leaving the hotel in a taxi about 10.30pm.
When the four first arrived at the hotel, at 12.30pm, the judge said Hand at that stage had been up for around 33 hours “on the trot” drinking and taking cocaine, and had had very little food. Some of the effects can be seen from CCTV footage of an unsteady Hand in the lift going up and down. At one stage, she is on the floor of the lift.
Lawrence gave evidence he saw flirtatious behaviour between McGregor and Hand in the car en route to the hotel and in the suite.
He said all four were in the sittingroom initially, but he later saw McGregor go into the other room and Ms Hand follow him in. The door between the interconnecting rooms was open, he could hear them having sex, and Ms Hand moaning, he said.
He said Kealey said to him, ‘She is going to regret that, she’s just bought a house with her boyfriend.’ He and Kealey had sex on the sofa bed using condoms, he said.
He said he saw, through the interconnecting door, Hand naked on top of McGregor at one point. McGregor and Hand later came out of the bedroom fully dressed and in good form, he said.
Lawrence said, sometime after McGregor and Kealey had left the hotel, he and Hand had sex in the hotel suite. He said he saw no marks on her and they had sex a second time after which Hand was starting to get upset. He said she was looking at her leg and arm, he could see a bruise and she asked him what would she tell her boyfriend. It was only a small bruise, he said, nothing like the bruising he was shown later in photos.
He disputed Hand’s evidence she had asked him about turning “a blind eye to what Conor did”. He said she returned to a good mood and they later left together in a taxi, he was dropped off in Crumlin and he gave her €50 for the taxi fare.
He later read articles about a rape allegation and a sports star. He did not at first think it had anything to do with McGregor but the more he read, he was concerned. He discussed it with McGregor and took legal advice.
He agreed Hand only made a complaint about his conduct after he went to the guards and told them he had had sex with her in the hotel.
Lawrence denied he was the “fall guy” for McGregor who, the jury heard, was paying his legal fees. He would “never in a million years” be the fall guy concerning a rape claim.
He said he was shocked when he saw photos of bruising on Hand.
Asked how he felt about having sex with a woman who is drunk, Lawrence said Hand was in her right mind, he did not chase her around and she had come on to him.
He did not notice Hand having any tampon or see any blood on the bed sheets. Hand’s account of events contained “multiple” lies, he said.
Kealey, subpoenaed by Hand’s lawyers to give evidence, said she knew Hand as a work colleague but not well. She said she saw Hand go into the bedroom of the suite with McGregor. When Hand came back out, “everything was fine” and she did not notice anything had happened or any physical marks or injuries on anybody, she said.
Kealey said she had sex with Lawrence once and they used a condom.
She could not remember hearing McGregor and Hand having sex or saying to Lawrence: ‘She’s going to regret that because she has just bought a house with her boyfriend.’
Hand’s side called three doctors, two paramedics and a psychiatrist, who gave evidence concerning her injuries and mental state.
Eithne Scully, a paramedic who examined Hand in the ambulance en route to the sexual assault unit on December 10th, said Hand’s chief concern was about a tampon “pushed up way too far”. She had a small cut on her chin, some bruising around her lower neck and bruising around her chest, abdomen, buttocks and thighs. “I had not actually seen someone so bruised in a long time,” Scully said.
Dr Daniel Kane, a gynaecologist who examined Hand in the sexual assault unit, categorised her injuries as moderate to severe.
He noted abrasions and bruising on several parts of her body, including her arms and legs, and said extensive bruising on her buttocks was consistent with fingertip bruising.
Purple bruising on her neck could be a love bite, and some of her acrylic fingernails were missing, he said. He used a forceps to remove a tampon wedged into the very top of her vagina.
Dr Frank Clarke, a GP at Walkinstown medical centre, said Hand was a patient there over 20 years, had a history over many years of being an anxious person and was treated with Sertraline, an anti-anxiety medication.
She had suffered serious physical and psychological injury and has significant ongoing distressing symptoms due to PTSD, he said.
Dr Ann Leader, a psychiatrist for 46 years dealing with 5,000 sexual assault cases, diagnosed Hand with “severe” PTSD in December 2020. Her opinion was based on reading Hand’s 150-page statement to gardaí, notes of counselling sessions with Hand during 2019 and 2020, Hand’s medical records and examining Hand herself.
Hand provided an account of rape, constant nightmares, panic attacks, detachment from friends, was worried photos of her bruised body may be circulating online, and felt her daughter and partner were also suffering, Dr Leader said.
Hand, she added, told her she had no memory of alleged consensual sex with Lawrence in the hotel and described feeling “like a lump of meat”.
After Dr Leader described Hand as “sincere”, the judge told her she must confine her opinions to her area of expertise.
Dr Catherine Murphy, a scientist with Forensic Science Ireland, said DNA obtained from Hand’s high vaginal, vulval and perianal swabs, her panties and right leg of her jump suit was one thousand million times more likely to have originated from McGregor rather than an unknown person.
The doctor examined a black jumpsuit Hand was wearing that day. Hand told the jury that, while at the after-party in the hair salon she had changed from the red jumpsuit she wore to the Christmas party into the “less revealing” black one.
Dr Murphy said the straps of the jumpsuit were ripped, the right strap was ripped from the front of it and, in her opinion, that damage was not the result of normal wear and tear but was caused by pulling. Blood was observed on Hand’s vaginal swabs and panties, she added.
The witnesses for the defence included Denis Dezdari who, along with two other security staff, provided security for McGregor at the Beacon on December 9th, 2018.
He said he regularly checked on the four in the suite, all were clothed, everything seemed “fine, happy” and none of them seemed drunk.
He went to a Londis shop near the hotel about 4.30pm and bought condoms for Lawrence, he said.
After he drove McGregor and Kealey to their homes in Co Kildare, he returned to the hotel where Lawrence was with Hand and ordered burgers and chips for all of them, he said. They wanted to stay longer and he told Mr Lawrence about 9.30pm he had to go to work elsewhere.
The defence called one medical witness, Professor Basil John Farnan, a part-time GP and forensic physician who examines victims of various types of assault.
He said bruises can appear within a few hours or can take between 24-48 hours if there is bruising deep in the tissue.
He had accessed a website which stated that Sertraline – the medication prescribed for Hand – can cause purpura, blotchy bruising of the skin, and a tendency to bruise.
He had not been asked whether it was possible to have sex with a tampon in but it was possible, he said.
At the end of Hand’s evidence, Lawrence’s counsel, John Fitzgerald SC, asked the judge in the absence of the jury to remove the case against Lawrence from the jury, saying his client had no case to answer.
Refusing the application, the judge said there was evidence concerning Hand’s condition in the lift and her own evidence she could not remember because she had drunk so much. If Lawrence was right in saying they had sex, how did he manage to have sex with this woman with all these bruises, the judge asked.
While not commenting on the strength of Hand’s case against Lawrence, there were “enough bits and pieces” from which the jury could infer that, whatever went on in the hotel room, if there was sex in the room, and on Lawrence’s own case there was, it was not consensual, he said.
Also in the absence of the jury, this time on day one of the trial, an issue arose about the admissibility of evidence related to an incident at Hand’s home in June 2024 which her counsel said was relevant to her claim she had to move from the Drimnagh area.
Ray Boland SC said, on the night of June 14th, 2024, Hand’s home was “invaded” by a group of men who burst into her bedroom but were “put off” by her partner who suffered stab wounds.
At that point, Mr Justice Owens asked what this had to do with the case.
Mr Boland said his side were not saying it was McGregor but that it was “a targeted attack and arose from supporters of him” and related to Hand’s claim she had to move from the Drimnagh area.
He had no difficulty saying to the jury his side were not claiming Mr McGregor had anything to do with the incident, counsel said.
Remy Farrell SC, for Mr McGregor, said the claim of entitlement to special damages over having to move house was “novel”. It seemed Hand was acknowledging the incident in June had nothing to do with his client and it was “extraordinary to try and smuggle such as claim into the case”. There was also an evidential issue, he said.
John Fitzgerald SC, for Mr Lawrence, adopted Mr Farrell’s arguments.
Mr Justice Owens said the matter was “completely and utterly irrelevant” and should not have been referred to.
In his closing speech for McGregor, Remy Farrell SC, with barrister Shelley Horan, told the jury it was “absolutely vital” they should decide the claims on the evidence, not whether they may “love” or “loathe” McGregor.
Hand, he said, had told “persistent” lies and “absolute untruths” about several matters before, during and after the events in the hotel.
The jury was urged to consider the case as about rape and to disregard a lot of matters as “just noise” but CCTV, and other evidence, including of Danielle Kealey, was not “just noise”, he said.
Hand said she remembered some things but not others and the “remarkable feature” of her memory loss was that it blocked the memory not just of allegedly traumatic events but also other non-traumatic events that suggested the alleged rape did not occur.
In closing arguments for Lawrence, John Fitzgerald SC, with barrister Justin McQuade, said Hand’s case against Lawrence was “bizarre” and the jury should find his client’s account of events was correct.
The case had come to court on the basis Hand had no recollection of Mr Lawrence having sex with her but, in her evidence, it became “some form of conspiracy”. She had said Lawrence gave gardaí a “made-up story” and was lying about having sex with her, counsel said.
Lawrence, he said, was not some “fall guy” in relation to the claim Hand was raped by McGregor.
Senior counsel John Gordon, with Ray Boland SC and Siún Leonowicz, had the last word on behalf of Hand before the judge charged the jury.
There was plenty of corroborative evidence that McGregor put Hand in a “stranglehold” and that she, having basically surrendered, was told by him ‘now you know how I felt in the octagon’, counsel said. McGregor had agreed, two months earlier, he was beaten in a big match and how, counsel asked, was he beaten? “His opponent put him in a stranglehold and he had to tap out to surrender and lose the match.”
Of course Hand’s story was “all over the place”, she was suffering from a fragmented memory, he said. “How would you feel if someone did that? Would you be cool, calm or collected? You would be in a terrible state and she was.”
Rather than calling Hand a liar, the liar is McGregor “who does not have the courage, the decency to own up to what he did”, counsel said. “If he was a man at all, he would apologise to my client for what he did to her. He is not a man, he is a coward, a devious coward, and you should treat him as what he is.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our In The News podcast is now published daily - Find the latest episode here
