The Court of Appeal has said it will give judgment “in due course” on Conor McGregor’s appeal against a civil jury finding in favour of Nikita Hand, who sued him over alleged rape in a Dublin hotel.
Mr McGregor, who denied rape and claimed he had consensual and “vigorous” sex with Ms Hand in the Beacon hotel on December 9th, 2018, advanced grounds of appeal.
They included that the trial judge erred in directing that the High Court civil jury should be asked to decide whether Mr McGregor assaulted, rather than sexually assaulted, Ms Hand.
Another ground included that the trial judge, Mr Justice Alexander Owens, erred in permitting a line of questioning concerning Mr McGregor’s “no comment” responses to investigating gardaí after providing them with a pre-prepared statement in response to Ms Hand’s rape claim.
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Lawyers for Ms Hand opposed the appeal and urged the court to allow the jury decision to stand. An order requiring Mr McGregor to pay Ms Hand’s estimated €1.3 million legal costs has been stayed pending the outcome of the appeal.
Mr McGregor had sought to introduce fresh evidence for his appeal which he said bolstered his insistence he was not responsible for bruising on the body of Ms Hand noted by a doctor who examined her on December 10th, 2018.
The evidence included affidavits from Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins, who lived across the road from Ms Hand in Drimnagh in late 2018. In an affidavit sworn last January, Ms O’Reilly claimed she had witnessed, from her home, a physical altercation between Ms Hand and her then partner Stephen Redmond in their home on the night of December 9th/10th, 2018.
In an affidavit, Ms Hand described her neighbours’ claims as lies and said Mr Redmond never assaulted her that night or at any time during their relationship.
After an application to admit the neighbours’ evidence was dramatically withdrawn by Mr McGregor’s side at the outset of the appeal on Tuesday, Ms Hand’s lawyers applied on Wednesday to have the matter referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for consideration of possible perjury, including possible induced perjury by Mr McGregor.
Senior counsel John Gordon said the court had power to refer the matter to the DPP and should do so because that would show the court’s concern about the “apparent abuse of its own processes”.
The fresh evidence application was not just to adduce further evidence but to undermine Ms Hand’s reputation pending the hearing of the appeal, he said.
Having viewed materials in chambers, the court agreed to refer the matter to the DPP and said it would inform the parties of the materials it proposed to refer.
The court reserved judgment on a linked appeal by James Lawrence (36), Rafter’s Road, Drimnagh, against Mr Justice Owens’s refusal to award him costs against Ms Hand after the jury found he had not assaulted her in the hotel after Mr McGregor had left.
During the civil trial, it was confirmed that Mr McGregor, who said Mr Lawrence was his friend, was paying his legal costs for the civil case.
Senior counsel John Fitzgerald, for Mr Lawrence, argued on Wednesday that his client was entitled to his costs against Ms Hand on grounds including the normal costs rule that they go to the winning party.
Ray Boland SC, for Ms Hand, submitted that the trial judge had discretion to make the order he had. When counsel said an order for costs against Ms Hand would wipe out her damages award, Ms Justice Kennedy said wanting the court to take cognisance of possible consequences of its orders was a “difficult” argument to make.
