Jurors in the civil action in which a woman alleges she was raped by Conor McGregor have been asked to put aside any negative views they may have of the mixed martial arts star and to consider the evidence in the case.
Mr McGregor’s counsel Remy Farrell FC told the jury they should not only consider lies told by the plaintiff, Nikita Hand, but also the reason for the lies.
The barrister also told them to look closely at video evidence they had been shown and consider whether it showed “a vulnerable person” in the aftermath of an alleged rape.
“Everything she said was flatly contradicted by the CCTV,” he said.
Mr Farrell was speaking to the jury of four men and eight women in his closing address in the case, which is now it its ninth day.
He said no explanation had been given for what he called Ms Hand’s “selective amnesia and memory loss”.
“The surprising thing is that these do not block out the memory of traumatic events but block out memories of non-traumatic events. Dancing in the lift, hugging, smiling. The bits that suggest the traumatic events did not occur,” said Mr Farrell.
In the High Court civil action, mother-of-one Ms Hand (35), a hair colourist from Drimnagh in Dublin, is suing for damages, claiming she was raped by McGregor (36) and his friend James Lawrence (35) in a penthouse suite of the Beacon Hotel in Sandyford on December 9, 2018.
The claims are rejected by both men, who claim they each had consensual sex with her.
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Ms Hand and her work colleague Danielle Kealey had been out the previous night at an alcohol and cocaine-fuelled Christmas party and wanted to continue partying into the next day.
Ms Hand arranged for Mr McGregor, who she knew, to collect them from their salon shortly after 10am and they went with him to the hotel, collecting his friend Mr Lawrence on the way.
She alleges she was choked and violently raped by Mr McGregor in the penthouse bedroom some time between 12.30pm and 6pm that day and says she has no memory of any sexual involvement with Lawrence. Both men claim she is lying.
The jury has been provided with evidence that Ms Hand was brought by ambulance to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit of the Rotunda Hospital around 9.30am the following day in a terrified state and with extensive bruising all over her body.
A general practitioner testified that internal bruising on Ms Hand’s neck was consistent with her account.
There has also been evidence that a tampon was wedged so far inside Ms Hand that it had to be removed with a forceps at the hospital.
Mr Lawrence claims he twice had sex with Ms Hand after Mr McGregor and Ms Kealey left the hotel to go home.
Both he and Mr McGregor say they did not cause her bruising and that it was not present after they had sex with her. They also claim she was not wearing a tampon.
Their legal team have highlighted CCTV footage from the hotel’s elevator and underground car park in the hours after she alleges she was raped by McGregor.
In the footage, she did not appear distressed and could be seen behaving affectionately towards both men, including patting Mr Lawrence on the backside, hugging and attempting to kiss him.
Ms Hand said she had no recollection of the events shown in the footage and that she was full of drink and drugs at the time.
At the outset of his speech, Mr Farrell told jurors that aspects of Mr McGregor’s behaviour “may not endear him to you”, that he was someone who “was hard to avoid” and “elicits hard views” from people.
“Some people love him. Some people do not love him. He is not backward about coming forward with his own views,” said Mr Farrell.
“It may well be the case some of you, a lot of you, have had negative views about Mr McGregor before coming on the jury. You may have had an active dislike of him. Some of you might have loathed him.”
He said lawyers “did hear the intake of breath from the jury box” at one point in the trial when Mr McGregor made references to “two lovely ladies” being in his car and that jurors may not have been impressed by his description of Ms Hand as “bombastic” when she got into the car.
Mr Farrell also said jurors may also not be impressed with a man who leaves the family home for a night out and ends up in a hotel suite with two women.
But the barrister said this should not mean that the jury does not give the same consideration to the case that they would give to any other case.
“I am not asking you to like Mr McGregor. I am asking you to consider the evidence, not to invite him out to Sunday lunch,” he said.
He urged jurors to work their way methodically through the evidence, to identify “islands of fact”, “to break down the evidence to look at specific issues” and to consider whether it was probable or not probable that certain events happened.