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Conor McGregor ordered to pay Nikita Hand’s €1.5m costs in civil rape case

Ruling comes on top of damages fighter was ordered to pay last month after a jury found he had assaulted Hand in a Dublin hotel

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The Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor has been ordered to pay the entire legal costs, estimated at €1.5m (£1.24m), in relation to a civil rape case brought by a woman in Dublin, a judge has ruled.

It comes on top of the near €250,000 damages he was ordered to pay last month after a jury found he had assaulted Nikita Hand in a Dublin hotel after a Christmas party in 2018.

The judge also said Hand should not be liable for the costs incurred by McGregor’s co-defendant, James Lawrence, who the jury found did not assault the hair colourist from Dublin.

He was a longstanding friend of McGregor’s but they had filed a joint defence and were therefore operating “in lock step” with each other, the judge told the high court in Dublin.

Had he found otherwise, Hand could have been liable for an estimated €400,000 in legal costs, making her success last month a pyrrhic victory.

“It is completely inappropriate to award Mr Lawrence any part of his costs even though he succeeded in his defence against Ms Hand,” Justice Alexander Owens ruled.

Hand had claimed that McGregor brutally assaulted and raped her in a civil case brought following the director of public prosecution’s decision not to bring criminal proceedings.

Her legal team argued that Lawrence had invented the story he had consensual sex with her to make her out to be a “hussy”.

The court had heard that she had suffered moderate to severe bruises and was still experiencing PTSD with night terrors, panic attacks and anxiety.

The judge said he had not yet decided what he was going to do about social media posts after the trial, in which McGregor complained he had been tried in a “kangaroo court”. He said he may institute contempt of court proceedings.

His barrister, Remy Farrell. said an appeal was “highly likely”.

The matter will next be discussed at a hearing on 16 January.