Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of a sexual assault.
Conor McGregor has lost his sexual assault civil case in Dublin.
A High Court jury awarded damages of €248,603.60 ($259,149.36) to Nikita Hand against McGregor on Friday after ruling that she was sexually assaulted by the former UFC champion in a Dublin hotel in December 2018.
Hand, 35, claimed she was raped by McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, in a penthouse suite at the Beacon Hotel.
The jury found that Lawrence did not assault Hand.
Damages of €188,603.60 ($196,602.28) were awarded to Hand with an additional €60,000 ($62,545.20) also added, making it a total of €248,603.60.
McGregor was accompanied to the court by fiancée Dee Devlin, with whom he has four children, for the first time during the trial’s two-week proceedings to hear the jury’s decision on Friday. Several of McGregor’s family members were also present at the High Court.
Reports from the court state that the jury took six hours and 10 minutes to come to their decision.
Leaving the court at approximately 5 p.m. local time, McGregor declined to make a comment as he was swarmed by the waiting media.
The case was a civil case, not a criminal case, meaning the assault is deemed a civil wrong and therefore the plaintiff is entitled to compensation, however, McGregor will not face criminal sanctions.
Hand was forced to move after her property was invaded in June by a group of masked men wearing balaclavas and wielding weapons, multiple Irish national outlets reported Friday in the aftermath of proceedings at Dublin’s High Court. The men also stabbed Hand’s partner and broke the front windows of her house, according to the reports.
Outside the court following Friday’s verdict, Hand gave a statement to media thanking her legal team, the rape crisis center, her family and her friends.
“Lastly, I want to thank my daughter Freya, she has given me so much strength and courage over the last six years throughout this nightmare to keep pushing forward for justice,” she said. “I want to show Freya and every other girl and boy that you can stand up for yourself if something happens to you — no matter who the person is — and justice will be served.
“To all the victims of sexual assault, I hope my story is a reminder that no matter how afraid you might be, speak up you have a voice and keep on fighting for justice. I know this has not only impacted my life, my daughter’s, my family and friends tremendously … it is something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.
“Now that justice has been served, I can now try and move on and look forward to the future with my family and friends.”
Afterward, McGregor issued the following statement on social media: “I will be appealing today’s decision. The judge’s instruction and the modest award given was for assault, not for aggravated or exemplary damages. I am disappointed that the jury did not hear all the evidence that the DPP reviewed. I am with my family now, focused on my future. Thank you to all my support worldwide.”
‘I thought he was going to kill me’
Hand testified that she and a friend were picked up by McGregor late on Dec. 9 following a Christmas party, with the understanding that they were heading to another party. After Lawrence joined the group, Hand alleged that McGregor shared a bag of cocaine with her and her friend in the back of the car, then traveled alongside McGregor’s security team and others to a penthouse suite at the Beacon Hotel.
Hand told the court that McGregor isolated her in a bedroom and attempted to make advances on her, which she resisted, stating her discomfort with knowing the family of McGregor’s longtime fiancée Devlin. Hand also claimed that she was on her period at the time of the assault.
“I was trying to try talk him around that I didn’t want anything,” Hand told the court in an emotional testimony. “I didn’t want to have sex and I wasn’t there for anything like that. He just wasn’t taking no for an answer. He then pinned me onto the bed.
“[McGregor] kept telling me to, ‘Relax babe.’ He pinned me down on the bed. I remember putting my arms up against my chest. He just kept pushing his weight down on top of me. I remember putting my arms like this, to keep him as far away from me as possible.”
Hand’s lawyer John Gordan told the court that Hand alleged she was “completely unable” to push McGregor off and documented extensive bruising on Hand’s hands and wrists.
“Mr. McGregor then flips her over and puts her arm in a lock and draws her up by the neck. She can’t breathe. And he does it again. By the third time he does it, she gives up,” Gordan told the court. “She can’t resist this anymore. In the course of this, he says: ‘Now you know what it was like to be in the Octagon when I went down three times.’
“She was at this point completely terrified. She subjected herself to what was about to happen, which was a violent and vicious assault.”
Dr. Daniel Kane, who worked in Dublin’s Rotunda hospital sexual assault trauma unit on Dec. 10, told the court that he met Hand that day after she arrived to the hospital via ambulance after her mother called emergency services. Kane testified that he witnessed Hand shaking and crying and bruising was present in multiple locations across Hand’s body.
“’He had me by the neck, he stopped me from breathing a few times. I thought he was going to kill me,’” Kane said Hand told him.
Kane said he examined Hand and, with forceps, removed a tampon that was wedged at the “very, very top.” He ultimately concluded from his examination of her that it was “consistent with the outline of events described by [Hand].”
Eithne Scully, a paramedic, told the court Hand was “very bruised” and said of her examination of Hand: “I haven’t seen someone so bruised, with that intensity of bruising.”
McGregor denied Hand’s accusations of sexual assault and claimed their encounter was consensual. In his testimony, he described the encounter as “athletic,” “vigorous” and “prolonged.”
McGregor, 36, has not competed in the UFC since a July 2021 loss to Dustin Poirier, during which he suffered a broken leg. A former two-division champion, McGregor was scheduled to return against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in June but ultimately withdrew due to an injured toe. UFC CEO Dana White recently stated that McGregor’s UFC return is being targeted for late 2025.
UFC has yet to comment on McGregor being found liable for sexual assault.
