A HIGH COURT judge has ordered Conor McGregor not to disseminate any CCTV footage that was shown during the civil trial taken against him by Nikita Hand.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens also directed that McGregor return any copies of the footage or other material discovered during the course of the litigation to his solicitors and arrange for the permanent deletion of any copies he has.
He ordered that McGregor must swear an affidavit outlining the steps he has taken to do this within a week from today.
He also said he would not be taking further action in relation to posts that appeared on McGregor’s social media account after the verdict in the civil trial which referred to the court as a kangaroo court, saying that it would “only be a distraction and would only keep it in the news cycle”.
In November last year, McGregor was deemed liable for sexually assaulting Hand in the Beacon Hotel on 9 December 2018, with the jury in the case awarding the victim over €248,000 in damages.
On Monday, solicitors representing Hand requested an injunction to stop the publication of the CCTV footage, following news reports this month alleging that the publication of video footage was imminent.
In documentation relating to the request, solicitor Dave Coleman, representing Hand, claimed that the publication of the material would amount to a contempt of court and that the “only purpose” for doing so is to “undermine and discredit” the outcome of the trial.
The affidavit referred to McGregor and a business partner of his, Gabriel Ernesto Rapisarda, who runs a company which distributes McGregor’s stout in Italy.
On 5 January, Rapisarda was quoted in newspapers saying that the video would be made public in January.
In the affidavit, Hand’s solicitor requested an injunction prohibiting the publication and circulation of the footage through “any mainstream media outlet or on any social media platforms, including the Meta and ‘X’ platforms”.
Mr Justice Owens gave permission for the notice of injunction to be served to McGregor’s solicitors.
Giving his decision this afternoon, the judge said it was necessary to “nip all of this in the bud”.
He said he was satisfied that there was a “real and demonstrable risk” that McGregor would provide the CCTV footage to Rapisarda.
The judge said the CCTV footage was part of evidence that was provided to solicitors for McGregor and Hand as part of the “discovery process” in civil litigation.
Mr Justice Owens said litigants who receive documentation under discovery “are bound to respect this rule” and not to misuse them for any other purpose.
He said any party who does misuse material obtained under discovery purposes “is guilty of civil contempt of course”.
Discovery refers to the pretrial procedure in a civil case where parties in the case can obtain evidence from other parties.
Any evidence that is discovered in litigation is subject to an implied undertaking that it will not be used other than for the purposes of the litigation concerned.
Mr Justice Owens said the trial was now over and it was no longer necessary for McGregor to have the CCTV footage, nor was he entitled to show or circulate the footage to anyone.
He said the facts in the case were clear and the jury had “conclusively determined” that McGregor raped Hand in the Beacon Hotel in Dublin in December 2018.
He said that will remain the position until such a time, if ever, that McGregor persuades a superior court to overturn the verdict and order a new trial.
He said that if McGregor needed to see the CCTV footage again in advance of any appeal, he could access it under supervision in his solicitors’ office.
Mr Justice Owens said McGregor “doesn’t get another run” at the case by “throwing out” material on social media.
He said any action on defamation would be a matter for Hand and for her lawyers.
The court heard that the cost of the legal proceedings amounted to €1.3 million.
Mr Justice Owens put a stay on payment of the full amount after counsel for McGregor said he intended to appeal against the decision.
He ordered McGregor to pay €100,000 of the damages and €200,000 of the legal costs now, with the remainder deferred pending appeal.
Neither Nikita Hand nor Conor McGregor were present in court today.
The case will return to the High Court in February.
This morning, Ray Boland SC, representing Hand, told the court that the materials “were released for a very particular reason, which was for use in civil trial”.
He said the footage was gathered by An Garda Síochána and provided in the case in disclosure on foot of a High Court order.
The CCTV footage was shown several times during the civil trial and was the subject of media coverage.
Boland said their legal team sent a letter to McGregor’s solicitors on 6 January asking that they “retrieve any material which has been disseminated” by McGregor by 7 January.
The letter, which was read in court, referred to two articles published in two newspapers. “Both articles report content from Mr McGregor’s business associate regarding the imminent release of CCTV footage,” the letter stated.
It stated that from the articles, “it’s clear that it is Mr McGregor’s intention to release the material”, which Boland said “could undermine and discredit the court.”
Boland also said the CCTV was disseminated to Dee Devlin, who has commented on it on social media.
He said that in reply to the letter, Hand’s legal team received a “short reply” the following day, informing them that McGregor “has not disseminated any material”.
“It says he has not disseminated material. It does not say he will not in the future,” Boland told the court, adding that it “raises suspicions when we asked him to make an explicit undertaking”.
“On that basis, I say it was necessary to bring the injunction,” he said.
Mr Justice Owens said the matter of the injunction was “going to be dealt with today, I can tell you.”
Remy Farrell SC, for McGregor, told the court that he wished to make an application in relation to the injunction, but added: “I’m not really sure there’s any point, judge. You’ve explicitly determined the issue.”
Mr Justice Owens said he was sharing his view on the matter. He said that when he received the application for an injunction on Monday, he thought “that if the application had been made last Monday, it was sufficiently serious that if the matter had been made ex parte, I would have given the thing”.
Applications made on an ex parte basis typically deal with urgent matters where only one side needs to be represented in court.
“For that reason, I’m of the view that something needs to be done about it today,” Mr Justice Owens said.
Farrell told the court that this is a case where the CCTV footage “was obviously something of central importance”.
He said the case took place in public, and the CCTV was played “on multiple occasions”, described in the national media and on social media, and was the subject of extensive comment by legal counsel to the jury during the civil trial.
“There seems to be an idea that material that is used in the trial, by reason of the fact that it was filed in discovery, that it exists in some kind of locked box,” he said, adding that it is “perfectly permissible” to make an application for access to exhibits in court.
Mr Justice Owens said people can apply to the court to make use of material provided in disclosure “for proper purposes”.
He asked: “What proper purpose do you say your client would use this for?”.
Farrell said he was not saying that was the case and said that no application had been made at this stage.
Mr Justice Owens referenced the fact that McGregor intends to appeal the jury verdict given last November.
He said it seemed that McGregor “by winks and nudges” wants to get “into the court of public opinion” and “reuse bits and pieces of the case to suit himself”.
He said McGregor would “never hope to get a retrial, which he so perfectly wants, if that was allowed to happen and he’s not allowed to do that because the verdict will stand until such a time that a superior court reverses it.”
Remy Farrell said it cannot be the case that people are not entitled to express a view in respect of the outcome of a court case and disagree with it.
“Yes, but you can’t express a view in such a way as to call a person a liar,” Mr Justice Owens said, adding: “It’s simply not on, and your client has done it.
“The point is that you’re appealing the thing and you want another jury to hear it with all of this circulating in the media in relation to it.”
Referring to the affidavit filed on Monday for an injunction, Farrell told the court that he fully accepts that McGregor is not entitled to disseminate the CCTV footage.
However, he said there were inaccuracies in the information being put before the court in application for the injunction.
Farrell said McGregor had the CCTV in his possession and that an implication made in the affidavit that he is not entitled to have it “is utter nonsense”.
“I accept that,” Mr Justice Owens said.
Farrell said he suspected McGregor would say that he had the CCTV in his possession for a period of time in preparation for the civil trial and that he would have watched it at home, and that it was likely his partner would also have seen it.
He said the newspaper articles published that contained Rapisarda’s comments was “hearsay upon hearsay”.
“When one looks at this, this is put before you for the purposes of saying he has disseminated the CCTV,” Farrell said, adding: “I want to put it before you that he hasn’t.”
Farrell said that McGregor did not disseminate the CCTV footage to Rapisarda and did not discuss the matter with him.
He said there was “no need” for an injunction as there is an implied undertaking in place.
Mr Justice Owens said Rapisarda in effect stated that he had seen the CCTV.
Farrell said he did not, telling the court that Rapisarda was discussing the content of the footage which was described in court and in the media.
Mr Justice Owens referred to the remark by Rapisarda that was quoted in the newspapers, where he implied that the CCTV would be released in January.
“It would be impossible to read that in any other way in my view than Mr Rapisarda has seen it,” he said.
“It’s clear he’s saying what’s going to happen in Italy in relation to this is that this video is going to be shown to have an explosion of a brand of stout.”
Farrell said he was making the point that Hand’s solicitor in the affidavit is saying the CCTV has been disseminated to Rapisarda.
Mr Justice Alexander Owens said that the injunction was being made “to ensure that Mr McGregor does not have the capacity to misuse this particular material”.
“Let’s get real about it, with respect,” he said.
He said the internet is such at the moment that if the material is disseminated, “it will be at the very furthest corner of the internet, of that dark hole of the internet being used by everybody”.
“Mr McGregor wants an appeal in relation to this, so that another jury is going to sit down in two years time and deal with the whole issue again.”
Mr Justice Owens said he wanted to know what documents McGregor has and who he has shown them to, and to “ensure that this has all given back to his solicitors”.
“With the greatest of respect, it is intolerable that I am trying to make the point and you keep interrupting me,” Farrell said.
He said the application was for a final order in the case, where hearsay is not admissible. “This is a hearsay upon a hearsay. It’s something that some lad on the internet said,” he said.
He said that discovery precludes the dissemination and that there was no basis to make a further order “that adds precisely nothing to what’s there already”.
In relation to the social media posts, Boland said there was a “scandalising” of the court where McGregor was “seeking to relitigate in the court of public opinion” through “using or abusing” his social media media.
Mr Justice Owens said the posts alleged “that your client was a liar” and said “that the court effectively conducted business as a kangaroo court”.
The judge later said: “What he wants is that it will go to a superior court and if he succeeds in his appeal, it will be back to a different jury.
“Surely you can’t complain and give out that the person on the other side is a liar and put that all around the place if in fact you want another jury to hear it, with all this swinging around the internet. That couldn’t be right.”
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