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THE COURT OF Appeal has said it intends to refer Conor McGregor’s application to withdraw “fresh evidence” that he had sought to introduce as part of his civil case appeal to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Lawyers for Hand had asked the court to make the referral after seeking to introduce material related to the matter to the court today.
The three-judge court confirmed this afternoon that it intended to refer the matter to the DPP.
In November last year, McGregor was deemed liable for sexually assaulting Hand in the Beacon Hotel on 9 December 2018 following a three-week civil trial at the High Court, with the jury in the case awarding Hand over €248,000 in damages.
McGregor, who had denied the allegations, subsequently appealed the jury’s decision and is seeking a re-trial of the civil case against him.
The MMA fighter had sought to introduce new evidence from Samantha O’Reilly, who had sworn an affidavit claiming that she witnessed, from her own home, Hand’s former partner assaulting her hours after a civil jury found that McGregor raped her.
But yesterday, his lawyers told the three-judge Court of Appeal that they were now withdrawing that application.
Before proceedings got underway this morning, John Gordon SC, for Hand, said he “wished to address the court if possible at some stage today” in relation to the withdrawal of the application yesterday.
This afternoon, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy asked Gordon if he had discussed what he was going to say with McGregor’s legal team. When he said he had not, the court rose for 15 minutes to accommodate this.
When proceedings resumed, Mark Mulholland KC, for McGregor, told the court that the matter related to materials that Gordon had intended to put to O’Reilly during cross examination yesterday, and objected to their introduction.
Referring to Gordon’s suggestion yesterday that the matter could result in a criminal investigation in the form of perjury, Mulholland told the court that if there should be a criminal investigation, “then quite properly these are matters that should not be dealt with in this court”.
He said Gordon raising the matter in this way was to get it on record for the media under the “cloak of privilege”, and said it was “wholly inappropriate”.
He said it served no purpose on the basis of this appeal, and if they wished to take matters further, “there are manners in which they can do so”.
Mr Justice Brian O’Moore told counsel for Hand that he had “taken to heart” what Mulholland had said in relation to potential criminal proceedings. He said that prejudicing any potential criminal prosecution is “the last thing you or this court would want.”
Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy then asked if the three judges could view the material in question before they are aired in court. The court was adjourned while this took place.
When the proceedings resumed shortly before 1pm, Ms Justice Kennedy said they had considered the documentation and asked Gordon what he was asking the court to do.
Gordon said he believed the court was entitled to add terms to its assessment of the application made by McGregor’s lawyers, which would involve costs.
“The costs will be mindful of the fact that this application was made and publicly disseminated some months ago,” he said.
He said the court is aware of what was in the affidavits sworn by O’Reilly and Cummins “and the scale of the accusations made against my client”. He said messages by O’Reilly on Instagram contained a direct accusation against Hand which he said called her a liar.
Gordon said the application was made “not just to adduce further evidence, but to undermine my client’s reputation pending the hearing of the appeal”.
He said Hand had called their claims out as lies in her responding affidavit.
“She was entitled to her opportunity yesterday to call that out in this court and they withdrew the application and so prevented her from calling out what was a series of highly disparaging and unfair criticisms of my client.”
Asked if he was saying this was relevant to costs, Gordon said he was, and submitted that the court had broad jurisdiction to act if “where the respondent has been disadvantaged”.
He said the court “should refer this matter to the DPP”, which would show “the concern that the court has” for the apparent abuse of its processes.
Mr Justice O’Moore asked Gordon if he was suggesting that the costs of the motions would be awarded in Hand’s favour and that the court would refer the papers to the DPP.
Gordon said yes. “I can’t ask for more than that, unfortunately.”
The court then rose to consider the matter.
When it resumed, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said: “We do intend to refer the matter to the DPP.”
She said the court would notify the parties of documentation in that regard in due course.
Earlier this morning, the Court of Appeal heard James Lawrence’s appeal for his costs.
Lawrence, of Rafters Road in Drimnagh, had alleged that he had consensual sex with Hand twice in the Beacon Hotel on 9 December 2018. Hand told the court that she had no memory of this and described it as “a made-up story”.
The jury found that Lawrence did not sexually assault Hand, and he was subsequently not awarded any costs by Mr Justice Alexander Owens, who said it would be “completely inappropriate to do so”.
Mr Justice Owens said it was difficult to see how there could be any separate legal costs incurred by Lawrence in respect of any solicitor, with McGregor conceding during the trial that he had paid for Lawrence’s costs.
John Fitzgerald SC, for Lawrence, told the court that the history of the law in this area “demonstrates the principle that costs usually follow the event” in jury proceedings, with the event being the verdict.
He said that while the law is “unclear and unsatisfactory”, what can be derived from it is that this principle “has a particular resonance in jury actions as opposed to non-jury actions”.
Referencing the jury’s decision not to award aggravated damages to Hand, Fitzgerald told the court that the trial judge, Mr Justice Alexander Owens, had clearly linked the issue of collusion to the awarding of damages.
He said the approach taken by the judge during the trial and the subsequent costs hearing was “starkly different”.
Ray Boland SC, for Hand, told the court that it was “notable” that in Fitzgerald’s submissions, “he hasn’t mentioned once that Mr Lawrence did not incur any costs” in the case.
“It’s an unusual situation where the court was aware that Mr McGregor had in fact borne all of Mr Lawrence’s costs,” he said.
He said both McGregor and Lawrence had been represented by joint solicitors, had entered a joint defence and were both represented by the same solicitor and the same counsel up until 30 May 2024, when Fitzgerald and Justin McQuade BL “came in on behalf of Mr Lawrence”.
“One doesn’t like to speculate as to why that was necessary, presumably to put an air of distance between them,” Boland said.
He said that while the jury did not award exemplary damages, “in my view, this did not cast doubt on their previous finding of liability. They were told to deal with liability first.”
He said a judge can assess the demeanour of witnesses and the manner in which the trial was run. “I say that the fact that Mr McGregor funded Mr Lawrence’s involvement in the case, and presumably his involvement in this appeal, is a matter which falls foursquare within this and can be considered by the trial judge,” Boland said.
He said it was “perfectly obvious” from the jury’s finding that they rejected the evidence of both Lawrence and McGregor.
Boland also went on to say that were Lawrence to be successful in appealing his costs, it would mean that he gets his costs against Hand, and that those costs would exceed the award made to Hand by the jury last November.
Asked if that was something the Court of Appeal should consider, Boland said he believes it should.
“In the interests of justice, it would set at nought the jury’s verdict,” he said, adding that despite awarding costs against McGregor, a larger sum of money would then be “scooped up” by his “avatar” Lawrence.
The judges said they would reserve judgement on the costs and give a decision at a later date.
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