‘He choked me three times:’ The harrowing tape of Nikita Hand telling her boyfriend that she was allegedly raped by MMA star Conor McGregor

Nikita Hand wept as she told her boyfriend that she couldn’t name the man who had raped her, as ‘he’ll f****** kill me’.

Ms Hand, 35, a hair colourist and mother-of-one from Drimnagh, Dublin, has accused both MMA star Conor McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, of raping her in the penthouse suite of a hotel in the capital when she was drunk and on cocaine.

Both men deny the allegation, and claim that the sex in December 2018, the day after the alleged victim’s work Christmas party, was consensual.

A harrowing recording of her 2am conversation was played to the High Court during the third day of Ms Hand’s civil case against Mr McGregor.

In it, her boyfriend tells her: ‘This isn’t a ‘shut up and say nothing’ situation. This s*** doesn’t happen any more. This thing about keeping quiet about stuff is not f****** happening.’

He also said he was concerned for the ‘other girls’ she told him she was with.

Nikita Hand (pictured) wept as she told her boyfriend that she couldn’t name the man who had raped her, as ‘he’ll f****** kill me’

Conor McGregor (pictured) allegedly raped the hair colourist at a hotel

Conor McGregor (pictured) allegedly raped the hair colourist at a hotel

During Ms Hand’s cross-examination, Mr McGregor’s barrister, Remy Farrell, said he was going to play an audio recording made by her then-partner Stephen Redmond after Ms Hand returned home.

In the recording, Ms Hand could be heard sobbing and in a highly distressed state, telling her boyfriend she had been raped.

She also wept in the witness box as the tape was played to the court, holding her head in her hands and screening her face with her hair.

On the audio, in a muffled voice, she was heard to say: ‘I told him no. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Her partner replied: ‘Just tell me what happened. Tell me.’

Ms Hand is heard responding: ‘In the Morgan… in the penthouse. He choked me. I can’t tell you who it was yet.’

The court has heard she believed she was at the Morgan Hotel in Temple Bar, when she was actually in the Beacon in Sandyford.

In the recording, Ms Hand (pictured) could be heard sobbing and in a highly distressed state, telling her boyfriend she had been raped

In the recording, Ms Hand (pictured) could be heard sobbing and in a highly distressed state, telling her boyfriend she had been raped

Mixed Martial Arts fighter Mr McGregor outside the High Court in Dublin on November 6

Mixed Martial Arts fighter Mr McGregor outside the High Court in Dublin on November 6 

She said she was with a number of girls from the salon, but refused to say whose apartment she was in.

‘I can’t tell you who it was. He’ll f****** kill me,’ she said.

Mr Redmond responded: ‘Nikita, you’re going to have to.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘He told me he’d kill me.’

Mr Redmond said: ‘Look at me for a second… I’m not giving out’.

Ms Hand told him she had been to her salon manager Emer’s house before coming home, and that she had told Emer who had raped her, and Emer had taken photos of her body. Mr Redmond insisted: ‘You have to tell me where you went.’

She replied: ‘I don’t want to. I’m frightened.’

He said: ‘Nothing is going to happen.’

She responded: ‘It is. He told me he’d kill me’, adding later: ‘I’m sorry. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault.’

Mr Redmond said: ‘You’re after telling me you’re after being raped.’ He asked who she met in town.

Co-defendant of mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor, James Lawrence, arrives at High Court in Dublin on November 6

Co-defendant of mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor, James Lawrence, arrives at High Court in Dublin on November 6

Nikita Hand (pictured), who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, is claiming civil damages against Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence, alleging she was sexually assaulted in December 2018

Nikita Hand (pictured), who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, is claiming civil damages against Mr McGregor and Mr 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,’ Ms Hand said. ‘Just look after me. I’ll sort it out.’

Mr Redmond replied: ‘This isn’t a ‘shut up and say nothing ‘situation. This s*** doesn’t happen anymore. This thing about keeping quiet about stuff is not f****** happening.’

He asks if the girls she was with are still in town.

‘How do you know if something is going to happen to them?’ he 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.’

Ms Hand told him she went into town at 1pm from the salon, and went straight into an apartment at the Morgan.

‘So you’re there all day?’ he asked, again asking her who she was with.

‘I can’t say who, Steve,’ Ms Hand said. ‘He warned me.’

Her boyfriend replied: ‘I don’t give a f*** who warned you or threatened you, I just want to know where you were.’

He continued: ‘Listen to me for a second. You’re going to fall asleep, you’re going to wake up and you’re only going to remember half of what you did and that’s a big f****** problem.

The proceedings are expected to last two weeks and the judge has asked the jury to make themselves available for three weeks (pictured: McGregor leaves the High Court in Dublin on November 5)

The proceedings are expected to last two weeks and the judge has asked the jury to make themselves available for three weeks (pictured: McGregor leaves the High Court in Dublin on November 5)

‘You’re obviously very drunk… Please tell me what happened. I’m begging you, I’m your fella.’

He said he was trying to ‘figure out’ what had happened and who had brought her to the penthouse.

‘How do you think I feel right now?’ Ms Hand is heard to respond.

‘Look at my knuckles from fighting back. He was choking me and I couldn’t breathe. He choked me three times.

‘Just be there for me. Who cares who it was. It doesn’t matter. He still hurt me.’

She told Mr Redmond there were two men present.

She said: ‘I was there for a party and coke and drink. That’s why I was there.’

‘It doesn’t sound like a party,’ he replied.

At a later stage in the recording, he asked why she could not tell him, when she had told Emer.

‘Emer is not going to say anything,’ Ms Hand responded. ‘You will. You’ll tell the nation.’

She also told him: ‘I’m after being f****** sexually abused… I’m after being raped and all you care about is you. Putting your arms around me and asking me am I okay is what you should be doing.’

She can also be heard asking: ‘Why me? Why me? Why me?’

Mr Redmond told her: ‘We need to do something about this’ and: ‘This is not being kept a secret.’

Earlier in the cross examination, Mr Farrell had said he would put his client’s version of events to Ms Hand, some of which he warned might find ‘offensive and upsetting’.

He asked her if she remembered Mr McGregor chatting up and ‘flirting’ with her friend, Danielle. She said she could not remember.

‘Was James chatting her up?’ he asked. ‘I don’t have a clue,’ she replied.

Mr Farrell continued: ‘So I’m going to suggest to you, you and Mr McGregor started kissing and that he had his belt of his jeans open at this stage because he was using the toilet.’

The former UFC champion arriving at the High Court on November 5

The former UFC champion arriving at the High Court on November 5 

Ms Hand responded: ‘I don’t agree.’

Mr Farrell said: ‘You largely took your own clothes off and he took his off and you’re both sexually excited… You started to give Mr McGregor oral sex and then went and had sex on the bed.’

Ms Hand said: ‘No’ and: ‘I don’t agree’.

Mr Farrell said that Danielle and Mr Lawrence were having sex at a similar time, and that at one stage Ms Hand had walked in and was ‘messing and slagging them’.

‘That’s disgusting. I don’t agree with any of that,’ she replied.

She also denied the description of the sex she was said to have had with Mr McGregor.

‘No. None of this is true…This is like a made-up story,’ she said.

Meanwhile, judge Alexander Owens has told the jury that correspondence between Nikita Hand and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), which they were shown on Wednesday, should not be considered evidence.

The letters explain why the DPP did not pursue criminal charges against either Conor McGregor or James Lawrence following Ms Hand’s allegation of rape.

Judge Owens said: ‘You are here to decide the evidence that you hear in court.

‘The DPP’s view is about as useful as my view or my judicial assistant’s view, that is to say, no use at all. So the DPP’s view and the reasons for the view you can forget. They have nothing got to do with the trial. If we wanted to do it that way, we would have a jury of five DPPs with their files before them.’

He said the DPP’s opinion was not evidence relating to the potential unreliability of the witness, Ms Hand, and was instead only before the jury to indicate that Ms Hand had not sought to take her own civil action before she heard that the criminal case would not proceed.

‘It is only relevant to the applicant’s state of mind, and as to whether in effect she is a chancer and if she went to a solicitor to vindicate herself or engaged in a try-on,’ he said.

The trial continues.  

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