Nikita Hand cried as she told her boyfriend she couldn’t name the man who raped her because “he’ll kill me.”
Hand, 35, a colourist and mother-of-one from Drimnagh, Dublin, accused both MMA star Conor McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, of raping her in the penthouse suite of a capital hotel when she was drunk. . and about cocaine.
Both men deny the allegation and claim that the sexual relationship in December 2018, the day after the alleged victim’s work Christmas party, was consensual.
A harrowing recording of their 2am conversation was played at the High Court on the third day of Ms Hand’s civil case against Mr McGregor.
In it, her boyfriend tells her, “This is not a ‘shut up and don’t say anything’ situation.” This shit doesn’t happen anymore. “This keeping silent about things is not happening.”
He also said he was worried about the “other girls” she told him she was with.
Nikita Hand (pictured) cried as she told her boyfriend she couldn’t name the man who raped her because “he’ll kill me.”
Conor McGregor (pictured) allegedly raped hairdresser in hotel
During cross-examination of Ms Hand, McGregor’s lawyer, Remy Farrell, said he was going to play an audio recording made by his then partner Stephen Redmond after Ms Hand returned home.
In the recording, Ms Hand could be heard sobbing and in a very distressed state, telling her boyfriend that she had been raped.
She also cried on the witness stand as the tape was played in court, holding her head in her hands and covering her face with her hair.
In the audio, in a muffled voice, she was heard saying: ‘I told him no. Very sorry. Very sorry.’
His partner responded: ‘Tell me what happened. Tell me.’
Mrs Hand is heard replying: ‘In the Morgan… in the attic. He strangled me. I can’t tell you who it was yet.
The court heard she believed she was at the Morgan Hotel in Temple Bar, when she was actually at the Beacon in Sandyford.
In the recording, Ms Hand (pictured) could be heard sobbing and in a state of great distress, telling her boyfriend that she had been raped.
Mixed martial arts fighter Mr McGregor outside the High Court in Dublin on November 6.
He said he was with several girls from the salon, but refused to say which apartment he was in.
‘I can’t tell you who it was. “It will kill me,” he said.
Mr Redmond responded: “Nikita, you’re going to have to do it.”
“I can’t,” he said. “He told me he would kill me.”
Mr Redmond said: “Look at me for a second… I’m not giving up.”
Ms. Hand told her that she had been to her salon manager Emer’s house before returning home, that she had told Emer who had raped her, and that Emer had taken photographs of her body. Mr Redmond insisted: “You have to tell me where you went.”
She replied: ‘I don’t want to. I’m scared.’
He said, “Nothing’s going to happen.”
She replied: ‘It is. He told me he would kill me,” and later added: “I’m sorry. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.’
Mr Redmond said: “She wants to tell me she wants to be raped.” He asked who he met in town.
Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor’s co-accused, James Lawrence, arrives at the High Court in Dublin on November 6.
Nikita Hand (pictured), also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, is seeking civil damages against McGregor and Lawrence, alleging she was sexually assaulted in December 2018.
“No, please, I can’t face it,” she replied.
He continued, “I’m going to call the guards.”
“Don’t do that, please,” said Mrs. Hand. ‘Just take care of me. I’ll solve it.
Mr Redmond responded: “This is not a ‘shut up and don’t say anything’ situation.” This shit doesn’t happen anymore. “This keeping silent about things is not happening.”
He asks if the girls he was with are still in town.
‘How do you know if something is going to happen to them?’ asked.
She told him they had gone home. He replied: ‘I want to know where you were tonight. Stop leaving out details and changing things. I want to know where you were.
Mrs Hand told him she went into town at 1pm from the salon and went straight to an apartment in Morgan.
“So you’re there all day?” He asked, asking again who she was with.
“I can’t say who, Steve,” said Mrs. Hand. “He warned me.”
Her boyfriend responded: “I don’t give a damn who warned you or threatened you, I just want to know where you were.”
He continued: ‘Listen to me for a second. You’ll fall asleep, wake up and only remember half of what you did and that’s a big problem.
The trial is expected to last two weeks and the judge has asked the jury to be available for three weeks (pictured: McGregor leaves Dublin High Court on November 5).
‘You are obviously very drunk… Please tell me what happened. I beg you, I am your friend.
She said she was trying to “figure out” what had happened and who had brought her to the attic.
‘How do you think I feel now?’ Mrs. Hand is heard responding.
‘Look at my knuckles for defending myself. I was suffocating and couldn’t breathe. He strangled me three times.
‘Just stay there for me. Who cares who it was? It doesn’t matter. It still hurt me.
He told Mr Redmond there were two men present.
She said: ‘I was there for a party, coke and drink. That’s why I was there.
“It doesn’t look like a party,” he responded.
At a later stage in the recording, he asked her why she couldn’t tell him, when she had told Emer.
“Emer’s not going to say anything,” Mrs. Hand replied. ‘You’re going to. You will tell the nation.
She also told him: ‘I’m looking to be sexually abused… I’m looking to be raped and the only thing you care about is you. What you should do is put your arms around me and ask me if I’m okay.’
She can also be heard asking: ‘Why me? Why me? Why me?’
Mr Redmond told him: “We have to do something about this” and: “This will not be kept secret.”
At the beginning of the cross-examination, Farrell had said he would present his client’s version of events to Ms Hand, some of which, he warned, could be “offensive and disturbing”.
He asked her if she remembered Mr McGregor chatting and “flirting” with her friend Danielle. She said she couldn’t remember.
‘Was James chatting to her?’ asked. “I have no idea,” she replied.
Mr Farrell continued: “So I am going to suggest to you that you and Mr McGregor started kissing and that he had the waistband of his jeans open at the time because he was using the toilet.”
Former UFC champion arrives at Superior Court on November 5
Mrs Hand replied: “I don’t agree.”
Mr Farrell said: “You took off a lot of your clothes and he took off his and you are both sexually aroused… You started giving Mr McGregor oral sex and then you went and had sex in bed.”
Mrs. Hand said, “No” and “I don’t agree.”
Farrell said Danielle and Lawrence were having sex at the same time, and that at one point Ms Hand had come in and was “provoking and criticizing them”.
‘That’s disgusting. I don’t agree with any of that,’ he responded.
She also denied the description of the sex she allegedly had with Mr McGregor.
‘No. “None of this is true… This is like a made-up story,” he said.
Meanwhile, Judge Alexander Owens has told jurors that correspondence between Nikita Hand and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), which was shown to them on Wednesday, should not be considered evidence.
The letters explain why the Crown Prosecution Service did not bring criminal charges against Conor McGregor or James Lawrence following Ms Hand’s rape allegation.
Judge Owens said: ‘You are here to decide what evidence you will hear in court.
‘The opinion of the Public Ministry is as useful as my opinion or that of my judicial assistant, that is, it is not useful at all. So the opinion of the Public Ministry and the reasons for that opinion can be forgotten. They have nothing to do with the trial. If we wanted to do it that way, we would have a jury of five prosecutors from the Public Ministry with their files before them.’
He said that the opinion of the Public Prosecutor’s Office was not evidence relating to the possible unreliability of the witness, Ms Hand, and that instead it was only before the jury to indicate that Ms Hand had not attempted to undertake his own civil action before learning that the criminal case will not proceed.
“Only the plaintiff’s state of mind is relevant, and whether she is actually an opportunist and whether she went to a lawyer to vindicate herself or participated in a test,” he said.
The trial continues.
