Conor McGregor has been accused of leaving a woman with bruises on her breast, knee and knuckle and a scrape on her jaw. The Mixed Martial Artist and a male co-defendant are being sued for assault over an alleged rape at in December 2018.
A woman has accused McGregor of assault in relation to an alleged rape at Dublin’s Beacon Hotel. It is a civil case, not a criminal one, after Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions previously decided not to prosecute the case.
McGregor and the co-defendant, James Lawrence, claim they had consensual sex with the woman on the day in question. They deny any allegation of rape.
A witness in the trial – who is a friend of the claimant – told the court that the woman had bruises on three parts of her body and a scrape on her jaw.
The witness said: “She said to Conor’s friend, ‘Do you turn a blind eye for what he does to women?’. Then she said to the driver she wants to go home.
“He asked her, ‘Does Conor want you to leave?’. She ran off. She ended up getting into a taxi. She then went to her sister-in-law, didn’t get an answer so she went to my house.
“She told me she did have a tampon in. And that she thinks it’s inside her. She was crying over that. She had said, ‘What am I going to do?’. I said you probably have to go rape crisis centre and if you do go there, it’s probably best not to have a shower.
“She had taken off her coat when she first came in and I saw the bruise on her arms. I helped her take off the jumpsuit and noticed bruised right breast with a scrape on it. She had a bruise on her knee I think, bruise on her knuckle, scrape on her jaw, red mark on her neck.”
The woman claims that she was assaulted by McGregor before he allegedly raped her.
On Thursday, McGregor’s counsel, Remy Farrell SC, questioned the woman’s version of events and accused her of telling a “web of lies”. Mr Farrell questioned the woman over comments she made to her then-partner about being in a taxi with a friend after she left the Beacon Hotel.
The woman admitted that was not true as she had been alone in the taxi, and said that she made the comment to reassure her ex-partner that she was okay. Mr Farrell said that the untruths she told her partner were “part of a web of lies you were weaving”.
“I was raped and battered a few hours before that so my mind wasn’t perfect at the time,” the woman told the court.
“I didn’t care about anything at the time. All I cared about was my body and how hurt I was. I didn’t care about anyone else.”
The case continues.