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.
“I felt vindicated. It was a really happy, special moment, but at the same time it was a really scary moment. It didn’t take away the fear and the anxiety – to this day I still live with the anxiety and the fear.”
Hand, 37, has published a book, Not the Perfect Victim, that chronicles the assault and the aftermath of a case that continues to reverberate on both sides of the Atlantic. Jimmy Fallon triggered an outcry in June after hosting McGregor on The Tonight Show for a softball interview.
Fallout from the case continued to play out on social media, said Hand. “I get so many beautiful messages online. And then I would get the odd hate message, from women and men, just calling me names, horrible names.”
Hand’s appearance on the Irish bestseller list is the latest twist in a story that has put a spotlight on how the legal system, and popular culture, responds to allegations of sexual assault.
Hand said she still struggled with being in the public eye, but was proud of the book. “I feel like I’m in control of my own story now, which I felt like I wasn’t for many years. The night of the assault, I wasn’t in control, another person was controlling my body.”
Growing up in Drimnagh, a west Dublin suburb, Hand had acquaintances in common with McGregor, who was from nearby Crumlin. While he found fame and fortune in and out of the octagon, she worked in a salon as a colourist.
In 2018 she had a partner, a five-year-old daughter and a new house. “Life was good. I was bubbly and loved going out with my friends.”
At a Christmas work party she drank, took cocaine and, on a whim, messaged McGregor on Instagram, asking if he knew of any parties. He collected Hand and a friend on the morning of 9 December and took them to the Beacon hotel.
Hand later testified that McGregor pinned her down on the bed, put her in a headlock and mock-choked her while raping her.
Hand went to the home of her mother, who called an ambulance and insisted that Hand report the assault, regardless of McGregor’s status. “She didn’t care who it was. She just cared about her daughter. She’s seen the bruises on me, she’s seen the state I was in.”
Hand was examined at a sexual assault treatment unit and gave a statement to police. When questioned, McGregor said the sex was consensual. In 2020 prosecutors decided to not press charges.
After failing to reverse that decision Hand took a civil case. “I did want this person to go to jail for what he had done to me but I had no other option but to take up a civil case. Unfortunately, when you have a civil case and you win it, your perpetrator gets to walk free. But I knew I had to do everything in my power to get some sort of justice.”
In June 2024, four months before the trial, three masked intruders broke into her home, smashed windows and stabbed her partner. Hand’s lawyers said they believed it was an attack by McGregor supporters, but that McGregor had nothing to do with it.
The two-week trial in November 2024 drew intense media attention. The public gallery was packed and Hand was seated almost within touching distance of McGregor. The cross-examination was humiliating, she said. “I found it really degrading. I found it just as bad as the assault itself. Sometimes I feel like victims nearly are on trial rather than the perpetrators. That’s the way we’re kind of made to feel.”
McGregor lost an appeal in July 2025. Last month a Dublin couple, Samantha O’Reilly and Steven Cummins, were charged with perjury after an investigation by police into evidence filed in McGregor’s appeal.
Hand credits her mother, her partner and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre with helping her to rebuild her life and to accept that the assault was not her fault. “The shame is leaving me but I do have my really bad days when I can’t leave my apartment. I have severe anxiety.”
She is no longer a hairdresser. “I did try to go back to work and it just wasn’t the same. So it will be a complete career change for me. I’d love to work with victims and survivors and help them have a voice.”
She wants her daughters – a teenager and a newborn – to grow up in a world where victims are not shamed or blamed. “It doesn’t matter what you wear or how much you drink or even take a drug. No means no and consent needs to be taken more seriously.”
Hand said McGregor should not have been hosted at the White House in 2025 or on Fallon’s chatshow. “It’s really upsetting. I can’t understand how he’s still given such a huge platform.”
She seldom mentions McGregor by name. “I don’t have any feelings for him. I don’t forgive him. I gave my evidence, he gave his and the jury made their decision. And that’s all there is to it.”
