The woman who won her High Court claim that she was raped by Conor McGregor has asked a judge to stop the MMA fighter from publishing CCTV footage seen by the jurors.
Nikita Hand was awarded almost a quarter of a million euro in damages by a civil jury, who found she had been assaulted by McGregor in the penthouse of the Beacon Hotel in Dublin.
During the high-profile case last November, the jurors had seen CCTV evidence showing Ms. Hand, McGregor, and their friends Danielle Kealy and James Lawrence in the hotel car park and lift on the day the assault took place, December 9, 2018.
November 22, 2024: Nikita Hand at the High Court in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)
During Ms. Hand’s cross-examination, McGregor’s barrister had suggested that the CCTV evidence showed that she was interested in a "romantic entanglement."
She replied: "I don’t remember what we were doing or saying. It is very hard to watch…I see a very vulnerable woman, a drunk woman who did not know what she was doing, who should have been looked after, who should have been taken home in that state."
Instead, she said she had been brutally raped and battered.
The case was already due to be mentioned before the court when it will be confirmed whether McGregor intends to appeal, and if he is to be fined for disparaging the court and verdict on social media.
However, Judge Alexander Owens was told yesterday [January 12] that Ms. Hand, a mother-of-one, is now worried that McGregor and his business partner intended to release the footage, in a bid to "change the public’s view" and boost sales of McGregor’s Italian stout.
She wants to apply for an injunction, to prevent the CCTV from being shared outside the courtroom, he was told.
In a sworn statement to the court, her solicitor, David Coleman, said stories in two Sunday newspapers on January 5 reported that Gabriel Ernesto Rapisarda, McGregor’s Italian stout distributor, had "indicated the imminent publication of the CCTV used in the trial of the proceedings," through posts on Instagram.
Mr. Rapisarda runs the Gabriel & Spirits company which is helping to distribute McGregor’s stout in Italy, and describes himself as a celebrity agent and professional brand builder.
View this post on Instagram
Mr. Rapisarda had taken to his Instagram account to defend the fighter after a woman asked how the court case had affected sales.
He said that despite the case, sales of the stout had "doubled" in Italy in December. He claimed sales would further increase after the CCTV evidence from the McGregor case was released this month to show how Ms. Hand behaved both before and after the alleged assault in the Beacon Hotel.
Mr. Coleman said any attempt to release this footage was a contempt of court, in circumstances where McGregor’s "only purpose" was "to undermine and discredit the verdict of the court and, in doing so, gain financially."
He told the court that the CCTV footage had been obtained from the gardaí purely for use in the litigation.
Mr. Coleman said McGregor appeared to have already shown his partner, Dee Devlin, the footage, and said that Ms. Devlin had "inappropriately" commented on its content on Instagram.
In a post on Instagram, Ms. Devlin said she looked forward to the day "the world" would see the "carry on" of Ms. Hand in the footage.
Dee Devlin's Instagram stories from November 26, 2024.
Mr. Coleman said it was clear that McGregor now intended to "disseminate selected pieces of evidence given at the trial."
He added that McGregor has "persisted in attempting to disparage the court since the jury the verdict of the jury was delivered."
He said it appeared from the newspaper coverage of Mr. Rapisarda’s comments that the CCTV footage had been shared with him by McGregor.
Mr. Coleman told the court he had sought an undertaking last week from McGregor that he would "retrieve any material which had been improperly disseminated and permanently undertake not to publish, disseminate or circulate any material which seeks to impute the decision of this honourable court."
However, he said McGregor’s response, through Michael Staines solicitors on January 7, was "entirely unsatisfactory."
Mr. Coleman therefore said he believed that the sole means of upholding the integrity of the court’s verdict was to grant the orders sought by Ms. Hand, barring the release of the CCTV footage or any materials obtained through discovery orders in the trial.
Last month, Judge Owens ruled that McGregor must pay the lion’s share of an estimated €1.5m in legal costs incurred during the civil trial.
He warned that McGregor also faces a potential fine for contempt, following an angry rant on social media in which he branded it a "kangaroo court."
However, McGregor’s barrister said it was highly likely that he would appeal both the jury’s verdict and the decision on costs.
During the civil trial, the jurors had heard that McGregor "would not take no for an answer" and that he had put Ms. Hand in a chokehold three times, leaving her struggling to breathe.
McGregor denied rape and contended that they had "vigorous," "athletic," and "fully consensual" sex.
Ms. Hand also had sued Mr. Lawrence, of Rafter’s Road, Drimnagh, after he gave a statement to gardaí in February 2019 alleging he had consensual sex twice with her following Mr McGregor’s departure from the hotel.
Ms. Hand said in evidence she had no memory of having sex with Mr. Lawrence and described his account as a "made-up story."
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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