Conor McGregor has lashed out at his rape accuser Nikita Hand, calling her a ‘vicious liar’, and slammed the ‘kangaroo court’ that found he sexually assaulted her.
The UFC star, 36, was ordered to pay Ms Hand more than £200,000 after a jury at Dublin’s High Court found she likely was attacked by him at a hotel in the city in December 2016.
Speaking outside court after the trial, Ms Hand said ‘justice has been served’.
During the trial she expressed her upset when the he Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided not to charge McGregor with a criminal offence.
After deleting an earlier social media post on X vowing to appeal, McGregor reposted an article with the caption ‘Justice was served for James Lawrence’.
Ms Hand lost her case against McGregor’s friend Mr Lawrence, whom she also accused of rape.
The MMA fighter added: ‘Deplorable what they done. Nikita hand, vicious liar! APPEAL!’
In a much longer post, he said: ‘Two men falsely accused. One vindicated, the other soon to be! Congrats James Lawrence on absolute exoneration! Twice this heinous accusation was put to you and twice it was shown as FALSE! LIES!’
The rant went on: ‘How these lies were accepted, I will never know. A court of feeling and opinion, brainwashed in to people via the main stream media. Not of fact!
‘The reporting in court a laughing stock to everyone present. As clear as day bias. This is not a court of hard evidence and truth. It is a kangaroo court of opinions and feelings.
‘We are not done yet. Not by a long shot. No chance. On we fight! Justice and truth will prevail! Appeal! Appeal! Appeal!’
Taoiseach Simon Harris said he has spoken with Ms Hand, a hair colourist from Drimnagh, and told her the case had prompted an increase in women coming forward to ask for support.
Speaking to the media on Saturday, Mr Harris said he told Ms Hand of the support she has from people across Ireland.
‘I spoke with Nikita today and I wanted to thank her for her incredible bravery and her courage,’ he said.
‘I wanted to make sure that she knew how much solidarity and support there was across this country for her bravery.
‘I also wanted to make sure she knew of what the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre had said yesterday – that so many other women have now come forward in relation to their own experiences of sexual abuse as a result of Nikita’s bravery.’
Calls to the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre surged during the McGregor case.
Chief executive Rachel Morrogh told the Irish broadcaster calls went up by 17% in the first 10 days of the trial, with contact by first-time callers increasing by 50% in the same period.
She said media coverage of the case was having ‘a really profound effect on the people who use the centre’s services’.
‘This case is being directly referenced by many of those callers who are distressed at the contents that they’re reading in the traditional media, but also that they’re accessing information that has been pushed through social media,’ she said.
‘So it’s a really distressing time.’
The total amount of damages awarded to Ms Hand by the jury was 248,603.60 euro (£206,714.31).
After eight days of evidence and three days listening to closing speeches and the judge’s charge, the jury of eight women and four men spent six hours and 10 minutes deliberating before returning their verdict.
McGregor shook his head after the jury read out that Hand had won her case against him.
He was accompanied by his family, including his partner Dee Devlin, parents, sister and brother-in-law.
The case, which opened on November 5, had previously heard that on the day of the attack, Ms Hand and her work colleague, Danielle Kealy, went to the penthouse suite with McGregor and Lawrence after their work Christmas party.
They had given evidence that they had been partying all night from December 8 and into the morning of December 9, and had been heavily drinking and taking cocaine.
Ms Hand, a mother-of-one, told the court how McGregor had pinned her to the bed in the hotel bedroom before assaulting her.
During her evidence to the court, Hand said she thought she would never see her young daughter again when the MMA star was ‘choking’ her.
The court heard that as she was being attacked, she ‘froze and couldn’t move or breathe’.
She said she had held up both hands and had tried to get away from him, but said the more she struggled, the more he appeared to like it.
‘The only thing I could move was my head. I bit him but I can’t remember where. He didn’t like it, so he flipped me around and put his arm around my neck and choked me,’ she said.
Hand was left with extensive bruises and abrasions over her body, including purple and blue bruising along her hands and wrists, a bloodied scratch on her breast and tenderness on her neck, after she said she was placed in a ‘chokehold’ by McGregor.
McGregor denied he caused the bruising across her body, saying they could have been caused when she ‘swan dived’ into the bath in the hotel room.
The court heard Hand suffered serious physical and psychological injuries as a result of the attack by McGregor and that she had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Hand was taken in an ambulance to the Rotunda Hospital the following day where she was assessed in the sexual assault treatment unit (SATU).
A paramedic who examined Hand the day after the assault had told the court she had not seen ‘someone so bruised’ in a long time.
Hand broke down several times as she gave evidence for almost three days and sought a number of breaks.
The jury had been told Hand had to leave her job as a hairdresser and has not been able to work since, because of her mental health, that her relationship with her partner ended months after the incident, she had to move out of her home in Drimnagh and her mortgage is now in arrears.
She also said she had to stop seeing a counsellor because she could no longer afford to pay for the sessions.
The court also heard that she has spent more than 4,000 euro (£3,326.54) on GP, pharmacy and psychotherapist costs.
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