Jury told McGregor case ‘not about some kind of hot take, not about your gut’

The jury in a civil case against Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor has been told to consider the evidence rather than providing a “hot take” in their verdict.

Mr McGregor is facing an accusation in the civil action that he “brutally raped and battered” Nikita Hand at a hotel in south Dublin in December 2018.

The Irish sports star previously told the court he had consensual sex with Ms Hand in a penthouse at the Beacon Hotel.

Ms Hand, who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, is also suing another man, James Lawrence, for sexual assault.

The jury began hearing closing arguments on Tuesday morning.

Remy Farrell SC, defence barrister for Mr McGregor, said it may be the case that some members of the jury – if not all of them – had negative views of his client.

He said: “You may have an active dislike of him, some of you may even loathe him – there is no point pretending that the situation might be otherwise.”

However, he said it was their job to consider the evidence in the case.

Mr Farrell said: “This case is not about some kind of hot take, not about your gut, not about what colour writers in newspapers might say it is about.”

He said the case could not be reduced to a soundbite and added: “This case is about the evidence and nothing but the evidence.”

He noted that the jury may not have appreciated hand gestures or comments made by Mr McGregor during evidence including referring to “two lovely ladies”, but added: “I’m not asking you to invite him to Sunday brunch.”

Mr Farrell said the jury were not considering the consequences of who they liked and disliked, nor who they would like to see win and not win the case.

He said the outcome would be devastating for either Mr McGregor or Ms Hand.

He said they were probably the hardest working jury members currently sitting in Ireland to have to put these considerations out of their mind.

Mr Farrell told them they had to consider on balance of probabilities whether the alleged assault is more likely to have happened than not.

He said: “Many of you probably don’t like Mr McGregor – that’s not terribly surprising. Should that matter?”

He added: “If this defendant was anyone other than Mr McGregor, would the door of the jury room hit you on the backside before you were out to dismiss this case?”

Mr Farrell told the jury it was their job to work their way methodically through the “islands of fact” which were uncontested pieces of evidence.

He suggested to the jury that it could be beneficial to cross reference text messages sent by Ms Hand and CCTV footage from the hotel.

He said the jury had the benefit of being able to look at CCTV footage of Ms Hand from the immediate aftermath and hours after the alleged rape.

Mr Farrell said John Gordon SC, for Ms Hand, had told them at the start of the case that there was a single issue of rape and a lot of noise surrounding that.

Mr McGregor’s legal representative added: “Having heard the evidence, do you think that’s right? Do you think all the other stuff is just noise?”

He told the jury that Ms Hand had given a “simply invented” account of the alleged rape in her first recollection of the incident to her friend Eimer Brennan after the incident.

He said she told Ms Brennan there were security guards present at the hotel when she woke up and she feared she would be “gang raped”.

He said it was also important that she told Ms Brennan that there was no sign of another woman, Danielle Kealey, when she woke up and that she left immediately.

He asked the jury to contrast this with a later account where she wakes up and does not immediately remember anything: “How can those two things be true?”

Mr Farrell said: “She sought to airbrush Danielle Kealey out of events”.

He said Ms Kealey’s evidence did not support Ms Hand’s account.

Mr Farrell said if Ms Hand was waking up thinking she was about to be “gang raped”, she must have said something to Ms Kealey.

Commenting on Ms Hand’s account to Ms Brennan, he said: “This is all an elaborate fabrication.”

Mr Farrell said that when cross-examined, Ms Hand said she must have been confused.

He added: “That’s one explanation, there are other explanations.”

He said it was “odd” that some things were coming back to her when she had given an account of things that did not happen.

“Ask yourself this question: That initial account, was that just confusion? Or was it just fantasy?” he said.

Mr Farrell also said texts sent by Ms Hand to her boyfriend while she was at the hotel showed that she was lying about where she was.

He asked the jury to consider “the sheer number of lies” in the transcript of a recording of a conversation Ms Hand later had with her boyfriend.

He said it was not a crime to lie but added: “What is much more interesting is why someone tells a lie.”

He said she had texted “clear fabrications” and an “absolute untruth” about her whereabouts to her boyfriend.

“Why is she doing it?”, he said.

Mr Farrell said the CCTV showed someone “well able” to deflect and lie.

He said it showed Ms Hand doing a “victory dance” after sending a text to her boyfriend where she did not say she was at the hotel.

Mr Farrell asked the jury to consider the consistency of Ms Hand’s account and said she could be seen to be “happy, happy, happy all the way through” on the CCTV footage.

“Then bang, as soon as she knows she has to go home and face the music – that’s when the allegations start,” he added.

He said Ms Hand’s account is that she was brutally raped by Mr McGregor while Ms Kealey, her friend, was no more than a couple of feet away in an adjoining room, for which he said evidence had been given that the door was not closed.

He said: “Could this really be true?”

Mr Farrell said Ms Kealey gave evidence that Ms Hand was in and out of the bedroom showing no signs of distress.

He asked the jury how this could conceivably be reconciled with Ms Hand’s account of events.

He said that she had asked Ms Kealey to delete text messages.

“Is all of that noise, or is it evidence that helps you?” he said.

Mr Farrell said Ms Hand “simply pretends she cannot remember” aspects of the day.

He said there was a “black hole” in her account where she had sex with Mr Lawrence.

Mr Farrell said Ms Hand had put forward a “very carefully put-together account”.

However, he told the jury that she said she did not remember details that did not corroborate her story, or flatly contradicted it.

He said: “Is it just a coincidence?”

The jury returned to hearing closing arguments from Mr Gordon on behalf of Ms Hand on Tuesday afternoon.