Conor McGregor loses appeal against civil rape finding

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Conor McGregor lost his appeal against the civil rape finding at the Court of Appeal, reported on 31 July 2025. The High Court jury had found that he raped Nikita Hand in a Dublin hotel in December 2018 and awarded her just under €250,000 in damages.

The appeal court rejected all of McGregor’s grounds, including challenges to the jury’s verdict and the admission of his Garda interview answers. It found that the trial judge’s decision to admit his roughly 100 “no comment” answers was incorrect and unjustifiable. However, it found no real risk of an unfair trial, noting that the judge had repeatedly warned jurors not to treat the answers as support for Hand’s claim.

McGregor had withdrawn an application to introduce evidence from two people who said they were Hand’s former neighbours. The appeal court awarded Hand the highest level of costs for that part of the appeal and said her account had been attacked through the proposed evidence.