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

Photo: The Canadian Press

DUBLIN (AP) — A woman who accuses Conor McGregor of sexually assaulting her at a Dublin hotel in 2018 testified in an Irish court Tuesday at the start of a civil case seeking financial damages against the mixed martial arts star star.

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

The alleged incident took place on December 9, 2018 and the civil suit was filed in 2021. McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, are the suspects.

A spokesperson for McGregor has previously denied the allegationssaying that Irish police had investigated and declined to pursue criminal charges.

In her testimony, the woman said she told McGregor she felt uncomfortable after being left alone with him in a bedroom in the penthouse suite of a Dublin hotel, the British news agency PA reported.

“I tried to talk him out of it, that I didn’t want to have sex and I wasn’t there for something like that,” the woman said of McGregor in court. “He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

John Gordon, the woman’s lawyer, said she and McGregor knew each other because they were in the same age group, from the same area, had mutual friends and had connected at various times on social media.

Daniel Keane, who works as both a gynecologist and 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 taken by ambulance to the hospital where he worked the day after the alleged assault. He described the bruises on the woman’s body and said the extent of them was “quite unusual”.

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

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