Conor McGregor: 'You're out of your mind if you think I'm paying costs for co-defendant'
Conor McGregor has said people are out of their ‘f*****g mind’ if they think he will pay the legal fees of a co-defendant in a sexual assault case.
Writing on X/Twitter yesterday, McGregor said it was disgraceful that his friend, James Lawrence, was forced to pay his own legal fees when it was shown in a Dublin court that he did nothing wrong.
McGregor made his comments after Dublin woman Nikita Hand launched a new legal case against him following the MMA fighter’s failed appeal against her civil rape allegations.
Conor McGregor. Pic: Fran Veale
He is currently sailing his yacht around the coast of Sardinia. On Wednesday, he had drug tests aboard the yacht in preparation for his return to Ultimate Fighting Champion mixed martial arts competition after a hiatus of nearly five years.
On X, McGregor complained Mr Lawrence ‘was awarded his clearance in a civil trial but he was not awarded his costs! ‘How incredibly wrong! To be accused of rape, win your innocence, and then be hit with the colossal bill of your defense [sic] while the lawyers and accuser who done the case against you, and lost, get their money. I don’t think I have ever heard the likes of this.
‘You are out of your f*****g mind if you think I am paying James Lawrence legal costs, folks. Who said I was paying his fees?
Nikita Hand. Pic: Leah Farrell / © RollingNews.ie
‘I said I didn’t know if I was, when the accuser’s barrister asked me on the stand, as I didn’t (who is paying his own fees I should have asked him at that time),’ he wrote.
Ms Hand on Thursday filed new court documents to sue Mr McGregor as well as two others, Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins.
Ms Hand, a 36-year-old mother of one, was awarded just under €250,0000 in damages by a High Court jury last year, after claiming she had been violently raped by McGregor in a Dublin hotel.
James Lawrence. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire
Ms O’Reilly and Mr Cummins had been due to give evidence in McGregor’s appeal but their testimony was withdrawn in ‘mysterious circumstances’, according to a lawyer in court.
The couple were due to testify that they had seen Ms Hand in a physical argument with her partner on the night that she said she was the victim of a sexual assault by the fighter.
McGregor said this evidence could prove what he said would be a ‘plausible explanation’ for the bruising on her body, which he claimed he did not cause. Ms Hand outright denied these new claims.
McGregor’s appeal was dismissed in full on Thursday. It had challenged several matters relating to last year’s High Court case, including the wording of the question put to the jury.
His legal team argued that it should have specified ‘sexual assault’ rather than simply asking ‘did Conor McGregor assault Nikita Hand?’
They also took issue with how McGregor’s interviews with gardaí were handled, saying the jury had been told he gave around 100 ‘no comment’ answers during questioning.
Outside the court, Hand said: ‘This appeal has retraumatised me over and over again. Being forced to relive it, what happened has had a huge impact on me.’
She added: ‘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.’
Ms Hand had alleged that Mr McGregor sexually assaulted her on December 9, 2018, and that James Lawrence did the same, the High Court heard during two weeks of evidence last year.
Ms Hand said she and a friend made contact with McGregor, whom she knew, after a work Christmas party.
She said they were driven by McGregor to a party in a penthouse room of a south Dublin hotel where drugs and alcohol were consumed.
She said McGregor took her to a bedroom in the penthouse and sexually assaulted her.
The jury found McGregor civilly liable for assault. In civil cases, a defendant is found liable or not liable. Ms Hand lost her lawsuit against Conor McGregor’s friend, Mr Lawrence.
McGregor subsequently appealed on the grounds that his lawyers believed his answers to gardaí during interviews should not have been put before the jury.
