A woman who alleges she was raped by mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor at a Dublin hotel six years ago has said she told a friend to delete all her text messages because she was "afraid for her life".
Nikita Hand has alleged in her civil action against Mr McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, that Mr McGregor raped her on 9 December 2018.
Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence, of Rafter's Road in Drimnagh, deny Ms Hand's claims.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Under cross-examination for a second day, Ms Hand told defence counsel Remy Farrell that she did not tell a friend who was in the same penthouse suite at the time of the alleged rape what had happened until a later time, when she was in a sexual assault treatment unit.
Mr Farrell put it to Ms Hand that the last she had seen of Danielle Keely was when she got into a car with a man she alleges had violently raped her and she had not told her in the immediate aftermath.
Ms Hand said when she woke up at first she did not remember what had happened to her and it was later when Mr McGregor and Ms Keely had left that things "slowly came back" to her.
She agreed that she later told Ms Keely to delete her text messages, replying: "I probably did because I told other people to because I was afraid for my life".
She agreed that she had told gardaí that Ms Keely "doesn't want to say anything because Conor dropped her home and she is scared because she knows he knows where she lives and I don't want to force her".
She rejected a suggestion from Mr Farrell that she seemed reluctant for gardaí to speak to Ms Keely and said "no, I didn't mind (but) I was worried about her because I know she was scared and I did not want to put her in a position where she would be frightened because this was about me".
Ms Hand said she had no memory of telling another friend that she had woken up to find security guards coming into the room and that she had fled as she believed she was going to be raped.
She said she had no memory of saying that and of saying she had run out of a basement car park of a hotel because she feared she was going to be raped by a security guard.
She said she was "obviously very confused and all over the place".
She agreed that she had deleted her Instagram account because she did not want to be on social media because "everyone was talking about it" and it was in the papers.
She agreed that the content of her Instagram would have been relevant to what happened that night but said "I did a lot of things at that time when I was scared".
She told gardaí she "deleted Conor from my Instagram, I blocked him".
Ms Hand said no one had told her to delete her account but then agreed with Mr Farrell that she had previously said she got a phone call from a garda at 2am in the morning telling her to deactivate her account as people were looking for pictures from it.
She said she now remembered that but said the decision to delete the account was her own.
"I could have said no but I didn’t want people going into my account and taking pictures to put in to WhatsApp groups and talk about what happened to me. I had enough to deal with what was being said in the papers," Ms Hand said.
Earlier she agreed with Mr Farrell that she had not told her partner when she arrived home who she had been with.
She agreed that she had sent him untrue text messages earlier.
Asked why she was lying to her partner about where she was at various times she said: "It’s not a crime to tell your boyfriend a lie."
(Above: Conor McGregor arriving at court this morning)
Shown photographs of the Beacon Hotel, where the alleged events took place, she said she thought she was in the Morgan Hotel that night.
She said they were being driven around and she believed she was going to a party and did not ask where they were.
Ms Hand broke down in tears and said she did not want to view again CCTV footage from the hotel again as it was "deeping disturbing". She said it was not her, not her character and she was drunk and vulnerable in the footage.
Earlier, she said she "should have been looked after, should have been taken home" in that state.
It was put to her that the reason she did not want to watch the footage was because it "flatly contradicts the story you have told?".
Ms Hand replied: "It does not take away what happened to me. I know what happened to me in that room I was brutally raped and battered and that CCTV does not take away what happened to me."
Ms Hand broke down in tears and took a break from the witness box.
Earlier, the judge told the jury they may have heard evidence about the DPP's letter to the plaintiff about a decision not to bring a criminal prosecution.
Judge Owens told the jury they were not there to adjudicate on the DPP's decision and that evidence was only put before them for context as to the plaintiff's state of mind when she went to her own solicitor.
Ms Hand rejected a suggestion from Mr Farrell that what occurred was that she and Ms Keely along with Mr Lawrence and Mr McGregor were all in the hotel suite and that she followed Mr McGregor into the bedroom and was a "willing participant" in having sex with him.
She denied that she had removed her own clothes and that she and Mr McGregor had sex in "various positions".
Ms Keely said: "This is like a made up story."
She also denied that Ms Keely and Mr Lawrence were having sex in the other room at around the same time and that she had walked in at one point and slagged them.
Jury hears recording
The jury also heard a recording made by Ms Hand's boyfriend of the conversation they had when she returned home after the alleged rape.
In the recording, Ms Hand can be heard sobbing and in a distressed state telling her boyfriend she had been raped.
He repeatedly asks her who she had been with and she told him: "I can’t, I can’t, he choked me, he told me he’d kill me, I can’t tell you."
Ms Hand’s then boyfriend tells her he wants to call the guards and she begs him not to, saying she cannot face it.
He then tells her "this isn’t a shut up and say nothing situation. This shit doesn’t happen anymore. This thing about keeping quiet about stuff is not happening."
He then says he is concerned for the "other girls" she was with and needs to establish if they were still in town.
Ms Hand tells him they had all gone home by then.
The conversation, which Ms Hand’s boyfriend has recorded continues for some time during which he pleads with her to tell her who she was with and reminds her that she is drunk and may not remember everything when she wakes up.
Her then boyfriend tells her he does not give a f*** who has warned her or threatened her and again asks her to tell him who she was in the hotel with .
As the recording was being played to the court, Ms Hand became distressed and had to leave the witness stand.
Afer a short break the court resumed and Ms Hand remained distressed in the witness box as the rest of the recording was played.
Her then boyfriend can be heard repeatedly asking her about what happened and she becomes annoyed with him for "making it about you".
She said: "How do you think I feel right now? I was fighting back, look at me. He was choking me, I couldn't breathe... who cares what happened, it doesn't matter he still hurt me."
She also tells him: "I'm after being f***ing sexually abused... I'm after being raped and all you care about it you. Putting your arms around me and asking me am I OK is what you should be doing."
Ms Hand repeatedly tells her boyfriend she cannot tell him who she was with because he "would tell the nation".
She can also be heard saying "why me? why me? why me?".
Her boyfriend tells her "we need to do something about this" and "this is not being kept a secret".
The case continues tomorrow.
