Nikita Hand, who last month successfully sued Conor McGregor for rape has been awarded her costs.
At the High Court this afternoon it was decided that McGregor must pay her legal costs although not at the highest level as sought by her representatives who argued that McGregor’s behaviour during and after the trial should be taken into consideration.
Last month, a jury of eight women and four men found McGregor culpable of raping Hand in December 2018, but ruled that his co-defendant, James Lawrence, did not assault Hand.
No order was made as to Lawrence’s costs.
On winning her case against McGregor, Hand was awarded €250,000 in damages.
This afternoon at the High Court Judge Mr. Justice Andrew Owens refused to grant Lawrence his costs.
John Gordon SC for Hand had said that he was seeking the highest possible level of costs against McGregor but that costs were not being sought against Lawrence.
Lawrence engaged representation from the same firm of solicitors used by McGregor shortly after Hand made statements to Gardaí that she had been raped. The court heard that McGregor had paid for these services.
John FitzGerald SC for Lawrence argued that his client should be awarded costs against Ms. Hand as the jury did not accept that Lawrence had made up his claims of having sex with her after she was raped and that this was shown by the fact that they did not award exemplary damages in the case.
During the hearing of the caseGordon SC said that Lawrence was lying about having sex with Hand and that he was acting as a “patsy” forMcGregor.
Today Gordon told Mr. Justice Andrew Owens that he had a wide discretion to seek maximum costs against McGregor because of his behaviour before and during the trial, arguing that this was relevant.
He said that social media posts made by McGregor after the trial had disparaged the jury referring to the proceedings as a “kangaroo court”.
He also claimed that McGregor had made intimidating remarks towards his client during the course of the hearing of the case.
Gordon agreed that it was necessary for exceptional circumstances to be present in order for the court to award costs at the higher level where a plaintiff would revolver over 90% of the costs compared with 80% ordinarily.
Mark Tighe reported that Mr. Justice Owens said he has yet to decide what to do about remarks McGregor made online and that he was considering issuing him with a fine should a contempt of court inquiry be initiated.
Remy Farrell SC for McGregor said that a judge cannot “go behind” the decision of a jury and speculate why certain decisions were made the way they were.
Farrell said that the court did not have discretion to make the wider costs orders sought and that a figure of €1m in loss of earnings claimed by Hand during the course of the proceedings was “unstateable”.
He said that it was “extraordinary” that Ms Hand had sued Lawrence for rape when she had said in evidence she did not have sex with him after McGregor left the Beacon Hotel that evening.
He argued that McGregor’s tweets should have nothing to do with matters as to costs saying that many litigants behave in an “immoderate” way towards verdicts.