Lawyers for the woman sexually assaulted by MMA fighter Conor McGregor in a Dublin hotel room in 2018 are seeking an injunction to stop the MMA fighter publishing or disseminating CCTV footage shown in court.
Last November a jury, in a civil action taken by Nikita Hand, found that Mr McGregor raped her in the Beacon Hotel in Dublin on 9 December 2018, and awarded her almost €250,000 in damages.
The case was due back in court on Thursday, when Mr Justice Alexander Owens was to finalise the issue of costs and deal with comments made by Mr McGregor on social media after the case concluded.
However barrister Siún Leonowicz, for Ms Hand, told Mr Justice Owens, that she was seeking permission to serve notice on Mr McGregor's solicitors of Ms Hand's intention to seek the injunction.
The matter relates to CCTV footage played to the jury during the trial showing Ms Hand, Mr McGregor and their friends Danielle Kealy and James Lawrence in the car park of the Beacon Hotel and in the lift at various points on 9 December 2018.
The footage was viewed by the jurors on a number of occasions.
In documents supporting the injunction application Ms Hand's solicitor David Coleman said articles had appeared in the Sunday Independent and Sunday World newspapers on 5 January in which an Italian business associate of Mr McGregor’s indicated the "imminent publication" of the CCTV footage.
He said this was to boost sales of an alcoholic beverage owned by Mr McGregor and distributed in Italy by the associate, Gabriel Ernesto Rapisarda.
The court was told that this was a contempt of court and the only purpose of doing it was to undermine and discredit the jury's verdict and to gain financially.
Mr Justice Owens asked Ms Leonowicz if she was referring to the "gentleman with the tattoo", as seen in photographs in the news articles exhibited as part of the application.
She agreed that it was and agreed that Ms Hand wanted the injunction to stop Mr McGregor using the CCTV footage used at trial in an "abuse of the process of the court".
The judge gave permission for notice of the injunction to be served on Mr McGregor's solicitors, and the issue will be back in court on Thursday with the other matters.
Last month, Mr Justice Owens ordered that Mr McGregor must pay the costs of the civil action but adjourned the case until 16 January, after being told by Mr McGregor’s lawyers that an appeal was "highly likely".
The judge also said last month that he had not yet decided what he was going to do about social media posts by Mr McGregor after the case, in which he attacked the integrity of the jury.
The judge signalled that he may decide to institute proceedings for contempt of court.
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Mr McGregor and his friend James Lawrence had rejected Ms Hand’s allegations of rape and claimed they each had consensual sex with her.
However, the judge said it was perfectly obvious from the jury’s finding that they rejected the evidence of both men.
He said Mr Lawrence had successfully defended his claim but not for the reasons he put forward in his defence.
The judge said the jury had concluded that Mr Lawrence did not have consensual sex with Ms Hand and that the two men had concocted the story between themselves.
