Evidence gives stark insight into the life of Conor McGregor

Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor told the High Court Nikita Hand had followed him on Instagram and would sometimes send him messages and compliments.

When Conor McGregor took to the stand in the High Court civil case in which he has been accused of raping a woman, his evidence gave an insight into how he was living his life at the time.

Members of his security detail were working eight-hour shifts. They would drive him places, book his hotels. A second car would follow behind. 

When they would go on a night out that lasted well into the next day, they would have to change over shifts.

“You’d pick people up as you went along,” he said.

Mr McGregor only made the stand after overcoming a bout of food poisoning and when he took his seat dressed in a black suit, he exhaled deeply before telling the court: "I was a little under the weather. A stomach complaint.” 

When he began to speak under questioning from his barrister Remy Farrell, it was a narrative that was entirely at odds with the one given by Nikita Hand.

It is Ms Hand’s case that the MMA sports star “brutally raped and battered” her in a hotel room in December 2018.

She said Mr McGregor put her arms “in a lock” and drew her up “by the neck”. 

She said he told her: "Now you know what it was like in the Octagon when I was down three times”.

Ms Hand said she was subjected to a “vicious and violent” assault that drove a tampon “right up to the back of her vagina”, which required a forceps to remove. 

It is Nikita Hand's case that the MMA sports star 'brutally raped and battered' her in a hotel room in December 2018. Picture: Leah Farrell

She later told her boyfriend she would be killed if she told him who had raped her.

It took a while for Mr Farrell to get to what happened in that hotel room when questioning Mr McGregor.

Early on, he was asked how Mr McGregor knew Ms Hand. 

They were from the same area, was the answer.

“I saw her around,” he said. “We’d be in the same circles.” 

Mr McGregor said that she followed him on Instagram and would sometimes send him messages and compliments.

The night started at 11pm in the Tivoli Theatre before moving onto Krystle nightclub until the early hours.

Mr Farrell asked was there “anything apart from drink” taken?

Mr McGregor replied that as “the evening got a bit later, cocaine got produced, yeah”.

The court had heard earlier testimony from Danielle Kealey, who accompanied Ms Hand to the hotel, that Mr McGregor had taken cocaine with them.

When the testimony turned to Mr McGregor picking up the two women — he said Ms Hand had messaged him several times on Instagram throughout the night and sent a photo of what she was wearing — he described the mood as positive.

Ms Hand was “energetic”, he said. “Boisterous”.

“There was a bit of music [in the hotel room], chat, and a drink,” he said. “We were having fun.” 

Mr McGregor said she followed him into the bathroom and performed oral sex on him before they had consensual sex.

He said the sex was “enthusiastic”, “vigorous”, “prolonged”, and “athletic”. 

His counsel asked him detailed questions about this, including about the positions they were in.

Earlier, hearing a multi-millionaire with 47m followers asked to explain how an Instagram story works to an Irish court room felt a bit redundant and anachronistic, but hearing Mr McGregor being asked to explain the missionary position led to an intervention from the judge.

The jury “haven’t come from Mars”, Mr Justice Owens said. “We can assume they know that. Sexual intercourse wasn’t invented with The Beatles either.” 

This prompted much laughter in the courtroom.

Mr McGregor was then asked about the tampon that a doctor had to remove from Ms Hand with a forceps and said it was not there when they had had sex.

“There was no tampon,” he said. “In broad daylight... Nothing from what I could see. Or feel. There was no tampon.” 

He said he fell asleep and they had consensual sex again before they all went their separate ways, despite her wanting to keep the party going.

“Your client is full of lies,” he told John Gordon, senior counsel for Ms Hand. “Everything is a lie."

When it was put to him that he put an armlock on Ms Hand — a claim he denied — and mentioned it was how he had felt in the Octagon, Mr McGregor asked how anyone could believe he, as a “prideful person”, would highlight his own shortcomings in referring to recent UFC loss.

He would also tell the court that when he found he was the “sport star” named in the press as being accused of rape, he was “completely shocked and frightened beyond belief”.

“It’s the scariest thing I’d ever gone through in my life,” he said.

The case continues.

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