Conor McGregor accused in Ireland court of ‘vicious and violent’ rape

MMA fighter and actor Conor McGregor was accused of committing a “vicious and violent” sexual assault, as evidence was presented Tuesday on the opening day of a civil case in Irish High Court.
Nikita Hand’s legal team told the court McGregor pinned her down and raped her during a December 2018 gathering at the Beacon Hotel in Dublin.
According to Hand, a group of mutual friends were hanging out in the hotel’s penthouse suite when she found herself alone in a bedroom with McGregor, who started “coming on” to her. After she seemingly rejected his advances, she struggled with McGregor, but he overpowered her, allegedly putting her in an arm lock and pressing on her neck until she couldn’t breathe, reported the Irish Times.
“Mr. McGregor will tell you that this was a consensual encounter, that they were just having fun and a bit of rough sex,” Hand’s lawyer, John Gordon, said in court Tuesday. “What he is saying is that she gave him a license to carry out what has to have been a brutal assault on her body.”
Dr. Daniel Kane, a gynecologist who examined Hand at Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital a day after the alleged rape, told the court Hand was in immense pain and crying during an exam in the facility’s sexual assault unit.
Dr. Kane said Hand had been on her period at the time and that forceps were needed to remove a tampon from the victim, according to the Irish Times. It was the first time he had seen such a thing in more than 340 sexual assault examinations, he told the court.
McGregor has denied Hand’s allegations, with his lawyers calling the lawsuit an extortion attempt by a “gold digger” and “a fraud.”
The case will resume in court on Wednesday and is expected to last about two weeks, according to The Guardian.