The jury in the High Court civil action against mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor and his friend James Lawrence is continuing to deliberate.
Mother-of-one Nikita Hand, a hair colourist from Drimnagh in Dublin, has sued both men for damages, claiming they raped her in the penthouse suite of a hotel six years ago.
A jury of four men and eight women resumed deliberations this morning shortly after 10am.
Before they resumed the jury foreman gave a note to the trial judge, Mr Justice Alexander Owens, asking for a HDMI cable and a monitor to better view CCTV footage presented to them during the case.
Shortly after 2pm, Mr Justice Owens told a packed courtroom that the jury had indicated they would continue deliberating today until 6pm.
The jury had spent just under an hour deliberating yesterday before they were sent home for the night.
Before going out, Mr Justice Owens reminded jurors that the onus of proof was on Ms Hand, the burden of proof was the balance of probabilities and that in coming to the conclusions they were to look at the evidence.
Deliberations were taking place on the twelfth day of the trial, which heard claims from Ms Hand (35), also known as Nikita Ní Laimhín, that she was brutally raped and battered by Mr McGregor (35) at the Beacon Hotel in Sandyford on December 9, 2018.
Mr McGregor claims they twice had consensual sex at the hotel.
His friend Mr Lawrence (35) claims he too twice had sex with Ms Hand after Mr McGregor left the hotel. Ms Hand said she had no recollection of this and described it as a made-up story.
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Mr McGregor was today accompanied in court by his fiancée Dee Devlin, with whom he shares four children, his father Tony, mother Margaret and sister Aoife. Also present was well-known mixed martial arts coach John Kavanagh.
Ms Hand was accompanied in court by her partner, as she has been throughout the trial.
The trial has heard how she and her work colleague Danielle Kealey had been out on December 8, 2018 at an alcohol and cocaine-fuelled Christmas work party.
Ms Hand wanted to continue partying into the next day and, after contact with Mr McGregor via Instagram, the UFC fighter collected them from the salon where they worked. The group picked up Mr Lawrence from his home and arrived at the Beacon Hotel around midday.
Ms Hand alleges she was raped by Mr McGregor some time between 12.30pm and 6pm .
The jury heard she remembered the rape but had gaps in her memory about what happened afterwards.
They heard evidence that a tampon was wedged so far inside her vagina it needed to be removed with a forceps in the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit of the Rotunda Hospital, where she presented in a terrified state the following day.
They were also shown photos taken by gardaí two days after the events in the hotel of Ms Hand’s badly bruised body.
Ms Hand’s lawyers put forward the theory that Mr Lawrence, who came forward to gardaí a day after they had interviewed Mr McGregor in January 2019, was lying and acted as a “a fall guy” or “patsy” the mixed martial arts star.
Both men rejected this theory. Mr McGregor denied they had been “in cahoots” but accepted he paid for Mr Lawrence’s lawyers.
Mr Lawrence had insisted “no man would put himself up for raping a woman”.
Mr McGregor also denied that he had booked the hotel suite so he could have sex with women.
He had spent several hours in a nightclub before deciding to meet Ms Hand.
It was put to him that “girls” who were with him in the nightclub had gone home, Ms Hand became “the substitute”. The UFC fighter rejected this, saying he had often booked hotel rooms rather than going home so he could rest, freshen up, go to the gym and have breakfast.
Mr Lawrence gave evidence that he heard and saw Ms Hand having “pleasurable sex” with Mr McGregor in the penthouse bedroom while he and Ms Kealey had sex on a sofa bed in the adjoining sitting room.
Ms Kealey gave evidence that Ms Hand and Mr McGregor went into the bedroom of the penthouse and that Ms Hand seemed fine afterwards.
A key part of the defence case is CCTV footage, which lawyers for Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence say showed Ms Hand acting in a manner inconsistent with someone who had just been raped.
In the footage she could be seen in the hotel lift and underground car park, behaving in a friendly manner with Mr McGregor and affectionately towards Mr Lawrence.
Ms Hand said she had no memory of this, that she was drunk at the time and should have been brought home.
This article was amended on November 22, 2024, to reflect that Mr McGregor was accompanied in court by his sister Aoife, not Erin.