Woman accusing Conor McGregor of sexual assault testifies in court at start of civil case

Conor McGregor outside High Court in Dublin, Ireland Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Niall Carson/PA via AP)

DUBLIN -

A woman accusing Conor McGregor of sexually assaulting her in a Dublin hotel in 2018 testified in an Irish court on Tuesday at the start of a civil case seeking financial damages against the mixed martial arts star.

McGregor was at the High Court in Dublin for the beginning of a case that is expected to last around two weeks.

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The alleged incident took place on Dec. 9, 2018 and the civil action was filed in 2021. McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, are the defendants.

A spokesperson for McGregor has previously denied the allegations, saying the Irish police had investigated and declined to bring criminal charges.

In her testimony, the woman said she told McGregor she didn’t feel comfortable after being left alone with him in a bedroom in the penthouse suite of a Dublin hotel, Britain’s PA news agency reported.

“I tried to talk him around, that I didn’t want to have sex and wasn’t there for anything like that,” the woman said about McGregor in the courtroom. “He just wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

John Gordon, the lawyer for the woman, said she and McGregor were known to each other as they were in the same age group, from the same area, had mutual friends and had been in contact at various times through social media.

Daniel Keane, who works as a gynecologist as well as a forensic examiner in sexual assault cases, also testified on the first day of the case. Keane said the woman was “shaking and crying” after being brought in by ambulance the day after the alleged assault to the hospital where he was working. He detailed bruising across the woman’s body and said the extent of it was “quite unusual.”

PA reported that lawyers for McGregor will argue that the act between him and the woman was consensual. It wasn't immediately clear when they will present their arguments.