Conor McGregor has told a High Court jury that a woman who alleges she was raped by him in Dublin’s Beacon Hotel is “full of lies”.
Mr McGregor said he had “athletic”, “vigorous”, “physical”, “prolonged” and “fully consensual” sex in a “multitude of positions” with Nikita Hand in the penthouse suite of the hotel on December 9th, 2018.
He was shocked when gardaí had shown him photos of bruising on Ms Hand, he said.
He said the bruises may have been caused when Ms Hand took a “swan dive” into a bath in the suite on December 9th or while she was out partying from the night of December 8th.
Miriam Lord: Conor McGregor stuns High Court onlookers with evidence about night of alleged sexual assault
Aviva Stadium atmosphere debate: ‘I almost felt self-conscious loudly cheering on Ireland’
Irish woman in line for top White House role under Donald Trump
Area inside Ballyfin Demesne hotel sealed off as crime scene after fatal assault
“I’ll tell you where she did not get them, from me,” he told John Gordon SC, for Ms Hand.
Asked about Ms Hand’s claim he had had her in an arm lock during the alleged rape, he said: “Your client is full of lies. Everything is a lie”.
He had “fully consensual” sex with Ms Hand, he said. There was “not an iota of distress”, it was “all happy”, “fun”, “it was energetic”.
He said he did not see any blood and would not have sex if he had.
He said he did not see or feel a tampon and there was “no sign of one” during sex with Ms Hand. “It wasn’t there when I was there.”
The tampon must have been introduced after he had sex with Ms Hand.
Mr McGregor was being cross-examined in the continuing civil action for damages by Ms Hand, a 35-year-old hair colourist, against him and another man, James Lawrence, of Rafter’s Road, Drimnagh. Both men deny separate sexual assaults of Ms Hand at the Beacon Hotel on December 9th, 2018.
Ms Hand’s case concluded on Wednesday after which the respondents, who are separately represented, began their case.
Mr McGregor, beginning evidence to his counsel Remy Farrell SC at about 2.30pm, said he had been in court throughout the hearing but was not there on Wednesday morning due to a stomach complaint.
He said Ms Hand, like him, is from the Dublin 12 area. He did not know her personally but had seen her around and they moved in the same circles.
He was living in the Ladycastle estate in the K Club in Co Kildare in December 2018 and was driven to a District 8 closing party on Saturday December 8th, 2018 after which he and others, including Mr Lawrence, went to the Crystal nightclub in Dublin city centre.
He was with James Lawrence and a few friends from his martial arts team.
He was on the stage at the District 8 event and posted a photo of that on his Instagram account. He said Ms Hand responded to that post privately and sent a “friendly”, “slightly provocative” photo of her in a red jumpsuit and said where she was.
“It was a nice picture, I liked it”.
At the nightclub, he ordered drinks for everyone with him and there was cocaine produced later, he said. People were asking where is the after party, some people got into his car, they were driving around and “trying to get something going”.
He had asked for a room to be booked in the Beacon but was not sure at that stage whether he wanted people to go to it, he said.
He could not recall whether he dropped Mr Lawrence home at some point or he got home of his own accord.
He said, throughout the evening, there was “a slew” of messages from Ms Hand saying she was at her Christmas party, at the Goat pub, and asking him to come out to them. Later messages from her asked him to ‘come out and get us’, he said.
When he picked up Ms Hand and a work colleague, Danielle Kealey, he thought he was going to their party in the salon but when he pulled up, they were outside the salon “in a blink”. He was not sure what they were going to do and had no plans immediately.
“It’s nice to relax in the back of the car and be driven around,” he said.
When Ms Hand got into the car, she was “very bombastic and energetic”.
Ms Kealey may have thought he was showing off his watch, he did not believe he was but he could see she may have thought that was not the case, he said.
When the women were “slagging” him, he thought he might go home but Ms Hand said not to, urged them to party and they all got along then, he said.
He had “two boisterous ladies full of energy” and he decided to get Mr Lawrence, whom he knew from his late teens, “to level it out” and have a party.
They drove to Mr Lawrence’s house, he went inside, told Mr Lawrence he had “two lovely ladies looking for a party” and “got him on board somewhat reluctantly”.
Because they were having great fun in the car, they had decided to go to the hotel, he said. The mood when they were in the hotel was “full of energy, fun, playful”.
He said drinks were ordered, including Bacardi, because Ms Hand liked Bacardi and they played music via the TV.
The reality of the penthouse suite was that it was two interconnecting hotel rooms, one had a bed, and one had a sofa bed.
When they first got into the room, he said Ms Hand “bundled” into the bath, there was a thud and she “tried to play it off by pretending to swim”.
“The party was in full swing, myself and Nikita were getting close, we were kissing, touching,” he said.
In the suite, he said he went into the bathroom and Ms Hand followed him in.
As he was in the bathroom, Ms Hand was in and out of the bedroom “very boisterous and energetic”. As he came out of the bathroom, they began kissing “more passionately” and it “took off from there”.
He said she performed oral sex on him when they were both clothed and they had both taken their clothes off.
He said Ms Kealey and Mr Lawrence were on a sofa bed in the interconnecting room and the door between was open. Asked was that unusual, he said he was not really thinking, “the whole thing is unusual”.
He said he and Ms Hand engaged in sexual intercourse and began in the missionary position.
Asked by counsel to explain that to the jury, the judge said the jury “don’t look like they came from Mars”. “Sexual intercourse wasn’t invented by the Beatles either,” he added.
Mr McGregor said the sex was “enthusiastic and athletic”, he and Ms Hand went through “a multitude of positions” and it “went on for a bit”.
There was a bit of banter with Mr Lawrence and Ms Kealey which was “all good-hearted”.
There was no tampon, no blood, and no discussion of a tampon, he said.
He said he fell asleep and was woken up by Ms Hand and Mr Lawrence each holding one of his legs up.
He said he eventually “came to”, that Ms Hand propositioned him again, began to perform oral sex again on him and they began to have sex again with her on top of him.
He believed he was about six hours in the hotel room and he first had sex after about an hour. He believed he left about an hour after having sex a second time with Ms Hand.
He said Ms Hand was urging him and the others to stay but he “had nothing left” and decided he was going. He said he had arranged for a car to bring the others home and told them they could order food, drink or whatever in the hotel.
He said Ms Kealey asked him for a lift home, she was also living in Kildare, and he eventually agreed to bring her home. “She was a nice girl.”
He said he saw no bruises whatever on Ms Hand and there was “not an iota of distress” from her while they were in the hotel.
When he learned about social media posts saying a rape claim had been made against a sports star, he never thought that referred to him and when he learned it did, he was “shocked and frightened beyond belief”.
“It was the most scary thing I have ever gone through in my life.”
He wanted to assist gardaí and a letter from his solicitors of December 13th, 2018 asked gardaí to go to the hotel and preserve CCTV.
Beginning his cross-examination, Mr Gordon put to Mr McGregor that he had said his reaction was to show gardaí everything he had, but he had not given them his phone.
Mr McGregor said he was not asked for his phone. He agreed he had not offered it and said he was taking advice from his solicitors. He was upset about that because he wanted to give the gardaí everything, he said.
Asked would he give his phone now, he said it was not the same phone but he would.
He wanted every shred of evidence to be put before the court, including evidence of your client “frolicking” in a taxi and “sucking dick”, Mr McGregor told Mr Gordon.
He agreed Ms Hand had given her phone to the gardaí, adding “with deleted messages”.
When Mr Gordon said Ms Hand had allowed messages to be recovered, Mr McGregor said: “Some, not all”.
Counsel asked him about the Octagon, a venue for martial arts fighting, and about his losing a fight there.
Mr McGregor said he was beaten in a “neck crank” and, “to the untrained eye” that was a headlock. He agreed he had tapped to stop the bout and his opponent was proclaimed the winner.
Put to him that must have been very distressing, he said it was a fight.
“You win some, you lose some in the martial arts game.”
Asked about Ms Hand’s claim he had put her in an arm lock three times and told her she now knew how he had felt in the Octagon, he said: “Your client is full of lies, everything is a lie”.
He did not know how anyone could believe that he, “as a prideful person” would highlight that, “a shortcoming”. It was a lie, he said.
When he said Ms Hand was present for a fight of his in Las Vegas in 2015, Mr Gordon said her evidence was she was in Las Vegas but not at the fight.
“It’s a lie and almost a fantasy, in my head it feels like a fantasy,” Mr McGregor said.
He agreed he had heard medical evidence concerning extensive bruising of Ms Hand.
When he said a doctor had said bruising on her neck was consistent with a love bite, Mr Gordon said that was only a small bit of the bruising.
Asked where he thought she got the bruises, he said she had taken “a swan dive” into the bath and was out three days from her Christmas party.
“I’Il tell you where she didn’t get them, from me.”
He said the sex between him and Ms Hand was athletic, physical, vigorous, prolonged, in a multitude of positions and during some of them he had his hands on her hips, buttocks, and the back of her legs. He did not have his hands around her neck, she did not bite him and he did not bite her, he said.
It was “not rough” and he did not believe he caused any of her bruises.
He said she did not tell him she was having a period and had a tampon.
He was shocked by the photos of the injuries, he said.
“I did not cause them, are you sure she did not have sex with someone else?” he asked.
His cross-examination will continue on Thursday.
Earlier on Wednesday, Danielle Kealey, who works in a hair salon and was partying with Ms Hand and other work colleagues on December 8/9th, 2018, said she went to the hotel suite with Ms Hand, Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence on the morning of December 9th.
She saw Ms Hand go into an interconnecting room with Mr McGregor but did not know what was happening in there. Ms Hand came back out and “everything was fine”.
“Everything was fine, no one was in bad form or anything, I didn’t notice anything had happened,” she told Mr Farrell, for Mr McGregor.
She did not notice any physical marks or injuries on anybody and did not see any bite mark on Mr McGregor’s face or bruises on his hand.
She had sex with Mr Lawrence in the sittingroom of the suite and had used condoms, she said. Her phone was broken and she has asked Mr McGregor could she leave with him because she knew he, like her, lived in Kildare.
Ms Hand and Mr Lawrence were to go in another car used by Mr McGregor’s security staff, she said.
All four went down from the suite in a lift and she said goodbye to Ms Hand who gave her a hug. Ms Hand did not want people to leave and wanted everyone to stay in the hotel, she said.
She got a message via Instagram from Ms Hand a day or so later saying she had been raped. “I was surprised because I didn’t see anything.” Ms Hand later told her to delete that chat, she said.
Ms Hand phoned her when she was in the Rotunda sexual assault unit, which the jury has heard was on December 10th 2018, and told her she was raped, she said. Ms Kealey said she told her she did not see anything.
She was subpoenaed by Ms Hand’s lawyers to come to court, she said.
In response to John FitzGerald SC, for Mr Lawrence, she said she had sex with Mr Lawrence once and only after he produced condoms.
She could not remember hearing Mr McGregor and Ms Hand having sex. She could not remember saying to Mr Lawrence: ‘She’s going to regret that because she has just bought a house with her boyfriend.”
She could not remember Ms Hand making some lewd comment about Mr Lawrence kissing Ms Kealey on the stomach.
In response to Mr Gordon, she agreed she made a statement to gardaí on January 8th, 2019.
She agreed she had said Mr McGregor collected her and Ms Hand on the morning of December 9th in a black BMW Mercedes with blacked-out windows. They had driven around for a couple of hours and she remembered going into various housing estates. She agreed she had said in her statement that Mr McGregor had cocaine. She said she, Ms Hand and Mr Lawrence had taken cocaine
When counsel said: “So everybody had taken cocaine?”, she said: “Yes.”
Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
