The Supreme Court of Ireland has rejected former UFC champion Conor McGregor’s bid for further appeal after a civil jury found him liable for sexually assaulting Nikita Hand in a Dublin hotel in 2018. The jury in that case awarded Hand nearly €250,000 in damages, a judgment the Supreme Court upheld Thursday.
McGregor first appealed that ruling to a Court of Appeal earlier this year, claiming that his answers to police in the case should not have been heard by the jury. The court denied that appeal on all grounds in July, saying that McGregor’s lawyers had not proved “a real risk of unfair trial.”
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Since then, McGregor hired new lawyers to represent him in an appeal on similar grounds before Ireland’s Supreme Court.
That court’s three-judge panel Thursday rejected that appeal, saying that while High Court Judge Alex Owens was incorrect to allow cross-examination of McGregor regarding his “no comment” responses to police, the court was nonetheless satisfied that McGregor had received a fair trial and no further appeal need be allowed on “the basis of the interests of justice.”
In a statement released by her legal representatives, Hand praised the court’s decision.
“Today marks not a victory for me but for all of those who have been treated as I have,” Hand said in the statement. “You are never alone on your journey, if you choose not to be. Help and support is there.”
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Judges also dismissed a related appeal by James Lawrence, who Hand had also accused of assaulting her after McGregor left the hotel. The civil jury rejected that claim, but Judge Owens denied Lawrence’s request that the court force Hand to pay his legal costs.
The Supreme Court of Ireland also rejected that appeal, saying Lawrence’s lawyers had not provided any compelling arguments to show that the ruling was “erroneous, let alone unjust.”
