Woman who alleges Conor McGregor raped her weeps in court during cross-examination

Conor McGregor’s barrister has told the woman who has accused the fighter of rape that CCTV evidence "flatly contradicts" her "story."

However, Nikita Hand said the footage shows a vulnerable, drunk woman "who should have been looked after."

"It does not take away from what happened to me in that room with Conor. I know what happened to me. I was brutally raped and battered," she claimed.

During her cross-examination at the High Court, on day three of her civil action against Mr. McGregor, the 35-year-old hair colourist wept as she viewed the images of her riding up and down in the Beacon Hotel’s lift.

The footage included images captured after her alleged rape by the mixed martial arts champion at the hotel’s penthouse suite in December 2018, and appeared to show her kissing his arm and hugging him.

Ms Hand said: "I remember we went down [in the lift]. I don’t remember every detail.

"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."

Mr. Farrell said that part of the footage appeared to show her kissing Mr. McGregor’s arm.

"I can’t remember that. I don’t know what I’m doing at that stage," she said.

Mr. Farrell said Ms. Hand had told the jury on Wednesday that she was not looking for "sexual activity or romantic entanglement, or anything of that sort."

"No, I wasn’t," she replied.

He stated: "From the CCTV, and I want to put this as delicately and inoffensively as I can, it would appear that you were interested in a romantic entanglement."

She answered: "Yeah, but I don’t remember anything."

Mr. Farrell said: "Everything in that CCTV footage flatly contradicts the story you have told."

She replied: "I don’t agree. It does not take away from what happened to me in that room with Conor. I know what happened to me. I was brutally raped and battered. I know what happened to me, and the CCTV footage does not take away from what happened to me."

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November 7, 2024: Nikita Hand leaves the High Court in Dublin. (RollingNews.ie)

"A very hard watch"

Mr. Farrell put it to her that she had spent 20 to 30 minutes going in and out through the doors from the car park to the lift, before returning to the hotel room with Mr. McGregor’s friend James Lawrence, of Rafters Road, Drimnagh, whom she has also accused of rape.

"You have no memory of that?" he asked, referring to the footage.

She answered: "It was a very hard watch. I don’t want to go through another 40 minutes of it.

"I can’t remember. It’s not my character. I can see how vulnerable I am. I am very drunk. I am stumbling. That’s not my character. I don’t want to have to look at it again. It is very disturbing for me."

She agreed that she had sent a number of text messages to her then partner, which were not truthful.

In one, which she said she sent after waking up next to Mr. McGregor in the hotel bed, but which Mr. Farrell said was sent from the hotel car park, she told her partner that she was great, very drunk, and in the Goat pub.

She told Mr. Farrell that she initially did this because she did not want to worry her partner, and later she did not tell him she had been raped as she did not want to "face reality."

DPP

She also admitted to deleting text messages to friends, and asking them to delete them, but said she did this because she did not want to press charges, and she was afraid.

Both men have issued a blanket denial of her allegations, and have claimed the sex they had with Ms. Hand was consensual.

Judge Alexander Owens has told the jury that correspondence between Ms. Hand and the DPP, which they were shown on Wednesday, should not be considered evidence.

The letters explain why the DPP did not pursue criminal charges against either man.

Judge Owens said: "You are here to decide the evidence that you hear in court. The DPP’s view is about as useful as my view or my judicial assistant’s view, that is to say, no use at all.

"So the DPP’s view and the reasons for the view you can forget. They have nothing got to do with the trial. If we wanted to do it that way, we would have a jury of five DPPs with their files before them."

He said the DPP’s opinion was not evidence relating to the potential unreliability of the witness, Ms. Hand, and was instead only before the jury to indicate that Ms. Hand had not sought to take her own civil action before she heard that the criminal case would not proceed.

"It is only relevant to the applicant’s state of mind, and as to whether in effect she is a chancer and if she went to a solicitor to vindicate herself or engaged in a try on."

The case continues before Judge Owens and a jury of four men and eight women.

*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.