Jury must consider if Conor McGregor presented "lurid and degrading pornographic fantasy" to gardaí, court hears

A jury must consider whether MMA fighter Conor McGregor presented a "lurid and degrading pornographic fantasy" to the gardaí about the woman who accused him of rape, the High Court has heard.

Judge Alex Owens told jurors that they will have the option, if they find McGregor assaulted Nikita Hand, of awarding aggravated and punitive damages in addition to a general award of compensation.

Ms. Hand, a 35-year-old mother-of-one, has sued both Mr. McGregor and James Lawrence for rape.

The hair colourist, from Drimnagh, has alleged they both raped her in the Beacon Hotel in Dublin on December 9, 2018, during a cocaine and alcohol-fuelled afterparty.

Both have denied her allegation, and claimed the sex was consensual.

November 12, 2024: Nikita Hand at the High Court in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)

In his charge to the jury, Judge Owens said the main purpose of general damages was compensatory, he said.

If they considered that Ms. Hand was raped, they should not award merely nominal damages, he said, "because of course the rape of a person is a very, very serious matter."

"Rape is devastating for a victim who will have to live with it for the rest of their lives," he said.

He told the jury it was more than a case of accidental damage, like an injury caused by a car crash – it was an affront to their dignity and reputation, could affect their mental health, and the longer a person had to wait for vindication the more serious the damage they would suffer in relation to it.

He said that aggravated damages could be awarded in addition to general damages, reflecting the level of violence or a breach of trust, if someone was incapacitated by drink, or reflecting a perpetrator’s attitude after the event.

He said that if the jury found that Mr. McGregor had raped Ms. Hand, they could consider his prepared statement to investigating gardaí.

"Did he sit down to concoct and present a lurid and degrading pornographic fantasy about Ms. Hand to the gardaí?" the judge asked.

Aggravated damages features could include "aggressive, arrogant and outrageous behaviour" by a perpetrator, a refusal to apologise, and an attack on the character of a victim, he said, along with any revictimization of the claimant.

Statements suggesting that Ms. Hand was a fraud or a gold digger could be considered by a jury with relation to potential damages, he said.

If Ms. Hand was successful in her case, the jury could award special damages to cover money spent by her, he said. This would include medical costs, the amount of which has been agreed between Ms. Hand and Mr. McGregor’s lawyers.

Judge Owens has told the jury that they cannot hold Mr. Lawrence liable for Ms. Hand’s PTSD, as she has no recollection of having sex with him.

November 13, 2024: James Lawrence at the High Court in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)

He said a special category of punitive, or exemplary damages, can be added by a jury for cases in which they felt a defendant should be "publicly seen to be punished for outrageous conduct."

Reasons could include a belief that witnesses had "got together to concoct a story" or to "attack a plaintiff."

He said it was important that the jury did not "double count" any of the different categories of damages, and suggested they should act as if the Court of Appeal was listening to their deliberations.

The overall figure should be proportionate, he said, and they should not get "carried away" or go on a wild attack’, or allow the process of awarding damages to be "overhauled by passion or outrage."

"Jury verdicts are not the last word," he warned. "There is always the prospect of an appeal. Try to obey my instructions as far as possible.

"Appeals we try to avoid. They don’t really help litigants, they only enrich the legal profession and someone has to pay them."

He advised that the judicial guidelines suggested a maximum award of damages of €550,000 in a personal injuries case for someone who was left paraplegic, and that libel awards had a general limit of €300,000, except in exceptional circumstances.

However, he said that no judicial guidelines had been written for cases of assault.

He told the jurors the law in civil cases allowed them to reach a majority verdict, in which at least nine of the 12 agreed.

Earlier, Judge Owens said that when considering the evidence in the case, they should look to see "if witnesses have an axe to grind or an interest in the outcome."

He suggested they should review the evidence of Ms. Hand’s friend Danielle Kealey, and of. Mr McGregor’s security guard Denis Dezdari.

He noted that Mr Dezdari had only ever seen fully clothed people in the sitting room of the hotel suite, "if he is to be believed," and that Ms. Kealey’s evidence of what took place in the penthouse was "minimal."

November 13, 2024: Danielle Kealey at the High Court in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)

He said the jury was "stuck" with the evidence the witnesses had given to the court.

"You can’t speculate about what they may have said if they were put on the rack in the Tower of London, if I can put it like that," he said.

He said the CCTV footage was a reliable silent witness, and that the jury should use their intelligence and judgment of human nature to judge if the people on view were "amorous, emotional or drunk."

They should also carefully consider the audio recording made by Ms. Hand’s partner at the time, of their conversation after she returned home, he said.

"The defence’s case is that she invented a story when she was in the taxi, and she committed to it, and her bruises, while extensive, were caused by consensual sex," he said.

For her part, Ms. Hand said she was frightened, and did not want to give any details which would lead to identifying Mr. McGregor, he said. She may also have been embarrassed to admit she had gone "on the tear" with Mr. McGregor, he observed.

Pleadings in the case had no evidential value, he said, unless they contained an admission, such as Mr. Lawrence’s admission that he had sex with Ms. Hand.

Disclosures of rape after the event should be used a tool to assess the consistency of Ms. Hand’s testimony, he continued.

The jurors should assess if what she said went to the core of her experiences or whether it was "all jumbled up as a result of hitting the bottle."

The further away from the event a disclosure was made, the less likely it was to be of value, he said.

Time passing allowed for an "embellishment or reconstruction of events, spontaneity may be gone, and a person may revisit his or her memory and fill in the gaps," he said.

He then began to give the jury an overview of all the evidence they have heard over the past two weeks.

Ms. Hand and Mr. Lawrence were present in court to hear the judge’s charge to the jury, but Mr. McGregor was not.

The case continues.

*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.