A jury gives a woman €250,000 in her civil case against Conor McGregor

A jury found Conor McGregor guilty of beating Nikita Hand and told him to pay €250,000.

A woman who said that Conor McGregor, a mixed martial arts boxer, “brutally raped and battered” her in a hotel penthouse in Dublin was given almost 250,000 Euros, or $257,000, by an Irish civil court jury on Friday.

The attack on December 9, 2018, after a night of partying left Nikita Hand badly hurt and with post-traumatic stress disorder.

McGregor told the judge that he never made the woman do anything against her will, and she made up the accusations after they had sex without force. His lawyer said that Hand was after his money.

After about six hours of deliberation in the High Court in Dublin, the jury of eight women and four men found the fighter guilty of attack. He shook his head. The fighter was once the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship but is now past his prime.

Lots of cameras were on him as he left court, but he didn’t say anything. He later said on the social network X that he would fight the decision and the “modest award.”

Hand read a statement outside the courthouse with shaking hands and a cracked voice. In it, she said she would never forget what happened to her but would now be able to move on with her life. Her family, partner, friends, the judge, the jury, and all the people who had supported her online were thanked, but her daughter was thanked the most.

She said, “She has given me so much strength and courage over the last six years of this nightmare to keep fighting for justice.” It doesn’t matter who hurts you; you can stand up for yourself and justice will be done. I want to show her and all the other girls and boys that this.

Her lawyer told the judge that McGregor blamed his client for his anger over a fight he lost in Las Vegas two months before.

In his final speech, lawyer John Gordon said, “He’s not a man, he’s a coward.” “He’s a sneaky coward, and you should deal with him like that.”

Gordon said that his client never claimed to be a saint and that when she sent McGregor a message on Instagram after a Christmas party, she was just having fun. They both grew up in the same area and knew each other through friends, he said.

On the way to the Beacon Hotel, she said he picked her up and a friend up in a car and gave them drugs. McGregor admitted to this in court.

It was Hand who said she told McGregor she didn’t want to have sex with him and that she was having her period. She said she told him “No” when he started to kiss her, but he pinned her to a bed so she couldn’t move.

She said that McGregor choked her and then told her, “now you know how I felt in the octagon where I tapped out three times.” He was talking about a UFC match where he had to give up.

Hand had to take several breaks during his three days of emotional evidence. During the meeting, she said McGregor made death threats against her, and she was afraid she would never see her daughter again.

He finally let go of her.

She said, “I remember telling him I was sorry because I thought I did something wrong and I wanted to reassure him that I wouldn’t tell anyone so he wouldn’t hurt me again.”

For what it’s worth, she said she let him have sex with her.

The next day, a nurse who checked on Hand said she had never seen anyone with that many bruises before. A doctor told the jury that Hand had several fractures.

Hand said that the attack had made her too traumatized to work as a hairdresser. She fell behind on her payment and had to leave her home.

Police looked into the woman’s report, but prosecutors decided not to press charges because they thought there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the man.

In his post on X, McGregor said he was upset that the jury didn’t see all the information that the prosecutors had looked at.

He said that the sex between them was very active and strong, but not rough. He told the judge that she lied about everything and never said “no” or “stopped.”

“It’s hard for me to believe that someone as proud as me would point out my flaws.”

McGregor’s lawyer told the judges that they couldn’t be angry at the fighter.

“You may actively dislike him, and some of you may even loathe him. There is no point pretending that things are different,” Remy Farrell, the lawyer, said. “Don’t ask me to invite him to brunch on Sunday.”

The woman never told police that McGregor had threatened to kill her, the defense said. In court, they also showed surveillance video that they said seemed to show the woman hugging and kissing McGregor on the arm after they left the hotel room. He told her she looked “happy, happy, happy.”

When asked by cops for the first time, McGregor said he was “beyond petrified” and read them a prepared statement. He wouldn’t answer more than 100 follow-up questions because his lawyer told him not to.

Hand took James Lawrence, one of McGregor’s friends, to court and said he had sex with her in the hotel without her permission. The judges found against Hand.