Conor McGregor has lost his appeal in the civil rape case involving Nikita Hand.
Last November, McGregor was civilly liable for sexually assaulting Hand and ordered to pay damages stemming from the December 2018 incident at a hotel in Dublin.
McGregor launched an appeal, contesting the use of his answers during interviews with the police for the trial, along with their issue over the wording of a question posed to the jury describing the incident as “assault”, instead of “sexual assault”.
The BBC is reporting that the three senior judges in the Court of Appeal in Dublin dismissed the appeal and felt McGregor’s representatives failed to prove that the trial had been “unfair”, nor did they give credence to the idea that the jury was confused by the different wording.
When the appeal process began, McGregor’s lawyers opted to withdraw an application regarding new evidence. McGregor’s lawyers were proposing that two neighbors of Hand had witnessed her being assaulted by her partner after the alleged rape by McGregor to explain the bruising on her body. Hand denied the incident with her now former partner occurred in an affidavit, and the evidence was not introduced in the appeal process.
Hand attended the hearing and spoke outside the courtroom after the appeal was rejected:
This appeal has retraumatised me over and over again, being forced to relive it, what happened has had a huge impact on me. To every survivor out there, I know how hard it is, but please, don’t be silenced. You deserve to be heard, you also deserve justice. Today, I can finally move on and try to heal.
McGregor’s friend James Lawrence was also seeking an appeal over the damages he had been ordered to pay, which the court also rejected. Hand had claimed that both McGregor and Lawrence sexually assaulted her, which they both deny, stating that the sex was consensual.
