‘I wanted to change the stigma’: Nikita Hand on winning her civil rape case against Conor McGregor
Nikita Hand had a compelling reason to not pursue a civil rape case against Conor McGregor. She was, in her own view, an imperfect victim.
The day of the assault, she had been partying with alcohol and cocaine before contacting McGregor, who took her to a Dublin hotel.
Hours later, bruised and stunned, Hand made a report to police, but Irish authorities declined to pursue a criminal case against the mixed martial artist, saying there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction.
That left the option of a civil case. But that would strip the hairdresser of anonymity, and pit her against a powerful celebrity who denied wrongdoing and had teams of lawyers and a vast online following. Hand went for it.
“I’m not the perfect victim and I never portrayed myself to be,” she said in an interview in Dublin. “But I feel when victims are not perfect, they seem to get blamed. And I really wanted to try to change the stigma around people thinking you have to be a perfect victim to be believed or heard.”
The cross-examination in the witness box at Dublin high court in 2024 felt like another violation, but Hand emerged victorious: the jury found that McGregor had assaulted her in 2018 and awarded nearly €250,000 in damages.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/14/conor-mcgregor-nikita-hand-civil-rape-caseOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
6 replies
I'm grateful for people like her. As someone who's been a perfect victim and as someone who's been at plenty of risk of being an imperfect victim we as a society desperately need to be better about imperfect victims.
Idgaf if you were out drinking in something skimpy and flirting with a bunch of people. If you said no you said no. If someone didn't ask and did shit anyways you still didn't consent. If you were too intoxicated to consent you still didn't consent. It's the imperfect victims who need us to speak up for them most
Edit: wait, what the fuck someone broke into her home, broke her windows, and stabbed her partner shortly before the trial‽ For a fucking civil trial with no possibility of jail time. What the actual fuck‽
Yeah McGregor has ties to organized crime and he tried really hard to get his victim to back off. I'm so proud of her that she didn't and so sad for his potential other victims.
That man really needs to be locked up
Jimmy Fallon proving, again, that he’s a piece of shit.
It was disgusting that McGregor was allowed to rehab his image by being invited onto Fallon's show. So many people saw who he was and greenlit that interview.