The civil action taken by Nikita Hand against mixed martial arts fighter, Conor McGregor and his friend, James Lawrence, accusing them of raping her in a Dublin hotel in 2018, continued at the High Court for a second week. Ms Hand is seeking damages.
The men deny the claims and say they had consensual sex.
Our legal affairs correspondent Órla O'Donnell looks back at the week’s evidence.
Nikita Hand spent most of the first week of these proceedings in the witness box giving her direct evidence and being cross-examined.
As the second week began, the crowds increased as expectations grew that the court would hear directly from the two men she has accused of raping her almost six years ago.
Medical evidence
The first witnesses of the week, however, were medical.
Two paramedics from Dublin Fire Brigade gave evidence about being called to attend to Ms Hand at around 8.41am on the morning of 10 December 2018.
Neil Dempsey told the court the woman he encountered was very distressed and had physical marks on her. She said she had been sexually assaulted and was concerned about a tampon she had inside her which had been there for some time.
CCTV footage was shown to the court of his colleague, Eithne Scully, examining Ms Hand inside the ambulance parked outside her mother’s home. The footage showed Ms Scully and Ms Hand pulling down her pyjama bottoms to examine her lower limbs. Bruising could clearly be seen on her thighs.
Ms Scully said Ms Hand was very withdrawn, agitated and upset. She found bruising from her neck and chest down to her legs. She told the court she had not "seen someone so bruised in a long time." She had been to many callouts she agreed and had not seen someone bruised "that intensely" with that amount of bruises.
One of the GPs at the practice Ms Hand attended gave evidence that she had examined Ms Hand ten days after the alleged attack. Dr Emma Quinn said Ms Hand was complaining of a pain in her neck.
Dr Quinn said there was tenderness on the left side of Ms Hand’s neck, consistent with internal bruising and with the story Ms Hand had told her of being held forcibly in an assault.
She agreed she had previously referred Ms Hand for an MRI in May 2018, for neck pain following a road accident in 2016.
Another GP, Dr Frank Clarke, gave evidence that he had certified Ms Hand as unfit for work in May 2019.
He said she was not coping with the work environment in the hair salon where she had to deal with people all the time and be cheery and positive. He said she was depressed and anxious and struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dr Ann Leader, a psychiatrist for 46 years, specialising in people who have alleged sexual abuse, described Ms Hand as a "good communicator, clear historian and a sincere person".
She immediately received a warning from Mr Justice Alexander Owens to stick to psychiatry and refrain from expressing her views on Ms Hand’s sincerity.
She told the court she came to the conclusion that Ms Hand was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder with "very pronounced and classical symptoms".
Forensic scientist Dr Charlotte Murphy gave evidence of finding semen on swabs taken from Ms Hand’s body and her clothing.
She found DNA profiles matching Conor McGregor’s and said it was 1,000 million times more likely that the DNA came from him rather than an unrelated person.
His friend, James Lawrence was excluded as a contributor to the swabs.
Dr Murphy told the court the straps of the jumpsuit Ms Hand had been wearing were ripped.
The right strap was ripped from the front of the outfit, she said.
This appeared recent, was not normal wear and tear and was caused by pulling, she said.
Dr Murphy agreed that the presence or absence of semen did not indicate consent.
She said it was not possible to scientifically address that.
Danielle Kealey’s evidence
Danielle Kealey was with Nikita Hand on the day the alleged rape occurred.
She said she did not know Ms Hand that well as they worked in different branches of the hair salon chain Gerard Paul.
She said Conor McGregor's name was mentioned when Ms Hand said she was chatting to him on Instagram during their Christmas party on the night of 8 December.
The following morning Mr McGregor collected them from the car park outside the salon.
She told the court she was "surprised" to hear what was alleged to have taken place between Mr McGregor and Ms Hand.
She said "no one was in bad form" and she "didn’t notice anything had happened" when she was leaving the Beacon Hotel that evening.
She agreed she had had sex with James Lawrence in one room of the penthouse while Mr McGregor and Ms Hand were in the other.
She said they came back out and "everything was fine". No one seemed upset, she said.
She told the court she had received an Instagram message from Ms Hand either the next day or a few days later telling her she had been raped.
Ms Kealey told her she had not seen anything. She said she had never seen or spoken to Ms Hand again after that.
She said Ms Hand’s solicitors had subpoenaed her to be in court but she had not been asked to give them her account of events.
Conor McGregor’s Evidence
Conor McGregor had been absent for the beginning of Ms Kealey’s evidence.
It was the first time he had missed any part of the case since it began.
But by 2pm that day, he was back sitting at the back of the courtroom beside his father Tony.
When Ms Kealey finished her evidence and left the room, Mr McGregor was called to the witness box.
He explained to the judge he had been "under the weather" with a stomach complaint.
Dressed smartly in a dark suit and tie, Mr McGregor was brought through his account of the events of 8 December and 9 December 2018, by his own senior counsel, Remy Farrell.
He spoke about training on 8 December before travelling to Dublin for the night and keeping his options open.
He went to a club with his friend Mr Lawrence and a few friends from the gym.
When he got there, he said the event organiser invited him up on stage. He took a photo with the DJ and the crowd in the background and posted it on his Instagram story.
Nikita Hand, out at her Christmas party in Dundrum with her colleagues, responded. Mr McGregor said she sent him a picture which he described as "friendly" and "slightly provocative". He said she was asking where he was and letting him know where she was. "It was a nice picture, I liked it," he told the court.
He said he knew of Ms Hand as she was from Drimnagh while he was originally from nearby Crumlin.
She followed him on Instagram and he said she used to send him messages.
"Sometimes I responded," he said.
Mr McGregor and his group decided to leave the first club and drove around for a while listening to music. This was something he liked to do he told the court.
At around 2am they decided to go to Krystle nightclub on Harcourt Street. There were rounds for everyone he said and "a bit of cocaine was produced".
They did not leave until 6.30am or 7am.
He had asked his security guard to book the suite in the Beacon Hotel while in the nightclub when there were women in the group.
But the women later went home. After which, he confirmed he contacted Ms Hand.
Asked in cross-examination if the hotel had been reserved for him to have sex, he said he booked hotel rooms as a "place of rest" before going back to "normal life" and sometimes for afterparties. Sex could take place he said if he was "lucky enough".
At around 10.15am, Mr McGregor and his driver arrived at the car park of the Goat pub to pick up Ms Hand and Ms Kealey.
He said he had received a "slew of messages" from Ms Hand throughout the previous evening. He believed he was on his way to their afterparty but when he pulled up they were "outside the car in a blink". They drove around "to see what the vibe was like" and "figure it out from there".
He decided they would collect Mr Lawrence who had gone home earlier. Mr McGregor told Mr Farrell he had "two girls – two boisterous ladies full of energy" in the car and he "needed to level it out, make it a party – that’s what they wished for."
Nikita knew James as well, he said. Everyone was laughing and joking, he said, loving life and they decided to go to the hotel, arriving, he later agreed, fifteen minutes after the room was ready for check in at around 12.15pm.
Mr McGregor said his security guard would have gone to get the key and they headed to the room. They walked into the penthouse full of "energy, happiness and excitement", he said.
He remembered Nikita jumping into the bath fully clothed in her high heels and landing with a thud.He thought this was amusing he said.
Vodkas, beers and Bacardi for Ms Hand arrived and they set up Bluetooth to play music through the television.
Mr McGregor said he was getting close with Ms Hand, kissing and touching. He went to use the bathroom in the other room and Nikita, he said, followed him in.
He said she was very "boisterous, very energetic, very enthusiastic". They began kissing a lot more passionately and it "began to take off from there".
He said Ms Hand performed oral sex on him and then they both began to take off their clothes and moved to the bed.
He said James and Danielle were three feet away in the other room and the door was open.
Asked to describe exactly what happened he said they engaged in fully consensual sexual intercourse. He said they went through a "multitude" of positions.
The sex was "enthusiastic and athletic" he described. "At one point her legs are on my shoulders, another time I am upright," he explained. They could also hear James and Danielle having sex and there was a bit of banter.
It was all good hearted and all happy, he said. Ms Hand did not have a tampon in, he said.
"There was no tampon, not from what I could see, not from what I could feel," he said.
He did not use a condom.
Mr McGregor said afterwards he slept until he was woken by Nikita and James holding his legs and giggling.
He said Ms Hand "propositioned" him again and he had sex with her again. Afterwards, he said Nikita wanted to keep the party going, but he had nothing left.
He had agreed to give Danielle a lift home as she also lived in Kildare. They went downstairs to the car park, he said.
Ms Hand tried to pull him out of the car but he left.
He said he saw "no bruises whatsoever" on Ms Hand and there was "not one iota of distress" from when she got into his car until he left.
Social media 'chatter’
Mr McGregor told Mr Farrell he remembered chatter on social media afterwards about a sports star being involved in an incident. His initial thought was that it was "definitely not" him. When he started hearing his name, he said he was "completely shocked and frightened beyond belief".
He described it as the "most scary thing he had ever gone through" in his life. He wanted to make sure everything was correct, to get the best advice and jot down notes of everything that had happened.
Mr McGregor’s cross-examination by Ms Hand’s senior counsel, John Gordon, immediately got off to a heated start.
Asked by Mr Gordon why he had not handed over his phone to gardai, he said they had not asked, and he had been taking the advice of his solicitor.
He raised his voice as he said he wanted everything put before the court, and there were gasps as he asked why they did not get the "statement of the taxi driver saying she was sucking his f**king d**k in the back of the car".
Mr Gordon asked if he was willing to make his phone available now.
Mr McGregor said he now had a different phone but "if you want it pal, no problem."
Mr Gordon quizzed Mr McGregor about his loss in a fight a few months before the alleged incident, politely hoping he was not messing up the name of his opponent Khabib Nurmagomedov as he did so.
Mr McGregor said his loss when he had to "tap out" after Mr Nurmagomedov put his arm around his neck was a "distressing event" but continued "you win some, you lose some in the martial arts game".
Mr Gordon said Ms Hand from the beginning of recounting her experience had described how Mr McGregor put her in an arm lock.
"Your client is full of lies," Mr McGregor said, "everything is a lie."
Quizzed further he continued to accuse Ms Hand of lying.
He said he found a recording made by Ms Hand’s boyfriend "very fascinating".
"I didn’t hear her voice being hoarse. Did you hear her voice being hoarse?" he asked Mr Gordon.
He suggested Ms Hand may have got her bruises when she "swan dived" into the bath at the hotel or at other stages while she was out "on a three-day bender".
"I’ll tell you where she didn’t get them from," he told Mr Gordon, "from me."
Mr McGregor agreed he had been asked over 100 questions by gardaí after giving them a pre-prepared statement at Dundrum garda station on 17 January 2019, and he had answered no comment to them all.
He said he "would have lovin’ to go to the top of the mountain and shout from the hilltops" but he was "beyond petrified" because of the seriousness of the allegations and he took his lawyers’ advice.
Mr McGregor agreed it was that night when he was taken through Ms Hand’s complaint in detail and saw photographs of the bruising there had been on her body the morning after the alleged rape.
He agreed he gave a second statement to gardaí afterwards in which he asked if she could have had sex with someone else and then told gardaí he believed she had sex with Mr Lawrence after he had left.
Mr Gordon put it to him at that stage he and Mr Lawrence had not yet decided "how they were going to play this". He asked if it was in his mind that Mr Lawrence "might be the patsy" or fall guy for him.
Mr McGregor said he did not believe so and described the suggestion as "silly".
He agreed that Mr Lawrence was also represented by his firm of solicitors and that he was paying his friend’s legal fees as part of the "staggering" legal bills he was paying "in dispute of these lies".
James Lawrence’s evidence
James Lawrence said he did not know what a "patsy" was but he denied being a "fall guy" for Mr McGregor.
Not "in a million years," he said. "Why would anyone put themselves up for raping a woman."
He had known Mr McGregor since they were children, he said, but they became closer when they got older.
He said he was not a heavy drinker and had never taken cocaine in his life.
He told the court he and Danielle Kealey had heard Mr McGregor having sex with Ms Hand while they were in the other room.
He said her demeanour never changed during the whole day – she was happy and laughing.
He had sex three times with Ms Kealey he claimed. After Mr McGregor and Ms Kealey left, he said Ms Hand became flirtatious with him, even though he rejected her 14 or 15 times.
He told the court he saw her texting her boyfriend "right in front of me".
She had "no problem lying to him," he said.
Eventually, while in the car with one of Mr McGregor’s security guards, he said he felt "peer pressured" to go back to the hotel with Ms Hand as she was coming on to him in front of another man and he felt "belittled".
When they eventually returned to the penthouse, he said he had sex with Ms Hand twice.
He said he saw no bruises at all on her body apart from a small bruise on her leg or arm.
Ms Hand became upset briefly looking at it he said, asking what she would tell her boyfriend. But he said she recovered quickly.
He said he saw no other bruises and would not stand up for any man who did something like that to a woman.
They eventually left the hotel in a taxi together.
He said he asked to be dropped off in Crumlin village as his partner was at home and he gave Ms Hand money for the cab.
Under cross-examination, Mr Lawrence raised his voice as he insisted he had seen no bruises and that neither he nor Mr McGregor had caused them.
He accused Ms Hand of lying. He also said Ms Kealey was lying when she claimed she had sex with him only once.
John Gordon said Mr Lawrence had put himself "directly in the firing line" by telling gardaí he had sex with Ms Hand twice.
He was asked about evidence from a security guard that he had checked in on the hotel room three times in the hour that Ms Hand and Mr Lawrence were there alone and had not seen him having sex with her.
Mr Gordon said the security guard had not seen them having sex and that they were both dressed.
Mr Lawrence said they may not have undressed fully and had dressed each time after having sex which "doesn’t last that long".
Mr Gordon put it to him that Ms Hand had originally described Mr Lawrence as a nice person who was looking after her and whom she trusted.
"I also thought she was a nice, good person but that turned out to be a lie," Mr Lawrence said.
Professor Farnan’s evidence
The final witness in the case was Professor Basil John Farnan, a forensic physician and GP with experience in examining assault victims.
He told the court bruising could appear within hours of a blunt trauma or it could take 24 to 48 hours to appear depending on the location of the trauma.
He also returned to the subject of the tampon that has featured significantly in the trial and in the evidence of the very first witness.
Dr Daniel Kane from the sexual assault treatment unit at the Rotunda Hospital told the court on day one that the tampon in Ms Hand’s body was "wedged" so high up in her vagina, he had to use a type of forceps to remove it.
Dr Kane said he had conducted more than 300 examinations of women, but this was the only time he had encountered a retained tampon after sexual intercourse.
Professor Farnan was asked if female patients had ever asked him about having sex with a tampon in.
He said this was not a question he was asked very often and would be a "peculiar" question to be asked.
However, he had discovered that some patients had done this and were flabbergasted to discover they had a tampon in.
Prof Farnan said he could not comment on a suggestion by Senior Counsel, Ray Boland for Ms Hand that the question was not asked very much because no one would choose to do it.
Mr Justice Owens has told the jury they will hear speeches from the lawyers and a charge from him before going away to evaluate the facts and come to their conclusions.
It is likely to become even more crowded in courtroom number 24.
