By James Crisp
Conor McGregor, the mixed martial arts fighter, raped a woman in a Dublin hotel, the city’s High Court has been told.
Nikita Ni Laimhin is claiming civil damages against McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, alleging she was sexually assaulted in 2018.
Conor McGregor during a fight with Dustin Poirier during a UFC mixed martial arts in 2021.Credit: AP
The Irish fighter’s lawyers claim Ni Laimhin is attempting extortion. Both McGregor and Lawrence claim the sex was consensual.
McGregor, nicknamed “Notorious”, was in court on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) to hear Justice Alexander Owen tell the jury it was alleged he and Lawrence had “in effect raped her” on December 9, 2018.
The court was told McGregor collected Ni Laimhin, a hairdresser, who has no automatic right to anonymity, and her friend in his car following a Christmas party on December 8.
John Gordon, SC, for Ni Laimhin, said the pair knew each other because they were about the same age, from the same area and had mutual friends.
Gordon said McGregor was considered a “hero” around the Dublin suburb of Drimnagh, where Ni Laimhin lived with her partner and seven-year-old daughter.
Ni Laimhin had been drinking, had taken cocaine and been out with friends.
The court also heard that she suffered from depression and had been on antidepressants.
The court was told that McGregor had a bag of cocaine, which was shared between him, the complainant and her friend.
The group, which included the complainant, McGregor, Lawrence, as well as his security team and others, then went to a penthouse suite in the Beacon Hotel in Dublin.
At one point, McGregor went into a bedroom and beckoned Ni Laimhin to join him. The court was told that McGregor “came on to her”, but she did not want to have sexual intercourse with him as she was on her period.
Gordon told the court she alleged that McGregor pinned her down on the bed and she was no physical match for him.
“She will tell you that she was nervous, that she tried to push him off her, but she was completely unable to do so,” he added.
“You will see pictures of her hands and wrists which are black and blue. You will see that her left breast has a bloodied scratch. The scratch is there because she was wearing a watch and had her hands up to protect herself. She was pressed down on and the watch scarred her breast.
“Mr McGregor then flips her over and puts her arm in a lock and draws her up by the neck. She can’t breathe. And he does it again.
“By the third time he does it, she gives up. She can’t resist this any more. In the course of this, he says: ‘Now you know what it was like to be in the Octagon when I went down three times.’
“She was at this point completely terrified.”
She was then subject to “a violent and vicious assault”.
It is alleged later that she had sex with Lawrence, but Gordon said she had no recollection of such an event happening.
Ni Laimhin later went home and visited her mother, who called emergency services. Ni Laimhin was taken to hospital by ambulance. The court was told that she was shaking and in pain while being transferred to hospital.
Gordon said: “In the face of this, McGregor will tell you that this was a consensual encounter, that they were just having fun and a bit of rough sex. That’s his answer.”
The defence claimed in the evidence booklet that Ni Laimhin had several opportunities to complain to people about how she was treated but did not.
It is also claimed that Ni Laimhin is engaged in an attempt at extortion, the court heard.
The hearing is expected to last around two weeks.
The Telegraph, London
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