The Court of Appeal is to give its decision on Thursday on an appeal by former MMA fighter Conor McGregor against a High Court jury's finding that he raped Nikita Hand.
Ms Hand sued Mr McGregor for damages for raping her on 9 December 2018 at a hotel in Dublin.
The jury at the civil trial found that he had raped Ms Hand and awarded her almost €250,000 in damages.
Mr McGregor had claimed he intended to introduce new evidence into his appeal to give an alternative explanation for the bruises suffered by Ms Hand.
However, he withdrew his application to introduce the new evidence before the appeal started, and the Court has already said it intends to refer this matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Mr McGregor had planned to introduce evidence from a couple who said they were Ms Hand’s former neighbours in Drimnagh. Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins claimed there had been a row between Ms Hand and her then boyfriend following her return home after being out with Mr McGregor.
Ms O’Reilly claimed she had seen Ms Hand’s then boyfriend moving his body in a way that suggested he was assaulting her.
Ms Hand said the couple were telling lies and she didn’t want to speculate about why. Her lawyers had suggested the matter should be referred to the DPP to investigate perjury and Mr McGregor should be referred for subornation of perjury – which means inducing people to commit perjury.
Mr McGregor was left with two main grounds of appeal.
His lawyers said the issue of Mr McGregor’s answers to gardaí when he was interviewed about raping Ms Hand should not have been allowed to go before the jury.
The jury heard that he said "no comment" around 100 times. Mr McGregor’s side said this was manifestly prejudicial evidence that should not have been introduced and the judge’s ruling that it was admissible was wrong.
Lawyers for Ms Hand claimed Mr McGregor himself had opened the door to this evidence being admitted in his own testimony.
The second ground of appeal related to the question asked of the jury on the issue paper. The jurors were asked if Conor McGregor had assaulted Nikita Hand. Mr McGregor’s lawyers said the issue paper should have specified "sexual assault" rather than "assault".
Senior Counsel Remy Farrell suggested there was a possibility there may have been some confusion amongst some members of the jury about their finding in this context.
Ms Hand’s lawyers said this was "nonsense" and there was no ambiguity whatsoever about what the jury was dealing with.
Mr McGregor’s friend James Lawrence had also appealed over the high Court’s decision not to award him his costs even though they jury found he did not rape Nikita Hand.
Ms Hand had claimed in her action that Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence both raped her.
Both men denied the allegations and said they each had consensual sex with her.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens in the High Court said it was perfectly obvious from the jury's finding that they rejected the evidence of Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence in what he said was a "most singular and peculiar case".
He said both men were acting in "lockstep" in their defence of the action and it would be inappropriate to award costs to Mr Lawrence even though the jury found he did not rape Ms Hand.
The judge said Mr Lawrence was entirely successful in defending his claim but not for the reasons he put forward in his defence. He said the jury had concluded that Mr Lawrence did not have consensual sex with Ms Hand and that the men had concocted the story between themselves.
But in the appeal court, Mr Lawrence’s lawyers said the jury's decision could not be parsed afterwards and the high court judge’s decision was wrong.
