Conor McGregor's appeal to begin in civil assault case
Former hairdresser Nikita Hand, 35, sued the mixed martial arts fighter over an incident at a south Dublin hotel in December 2018.
He was said to have 'brutally raped and battered' Ms Hand in a penthouse at the Beacon Hotel.
During a three-week case at the High Court in Dublin last November, McGregor told the court he had consensual sex with Ms Hand.
After six hours and 10 minutes of deliberating, the jury of eight women and four men found McGregor civilly liable for assault.
Ms Hand was awarded 248,603.60 euro (about £206,000) in damages.
McGregor was ordered by a judge to pay Ms Hand 100,000 euro (£85,000) of the damages and 200,000 euro (£170,000) of an expected 1.3 million euro (£1.1 million) in legal costs before the appeal, which the court heard had been done.
Ms Hand, also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, lost her case against another man, James Lawrence, who she accused of assaulting her by allegedly having sex without her consent at the same hotel.
On Tuesday morning, the Court of Appeal in Dublin is to hear new evidence in support of McGregor's appeal.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Disneyland paedophile ‘took nine-year-old bride's mother on holiday'
A convicted British paedophile allegedly took the nine-year-old girl he was due to 'marry' in Disneyland Paris on holiday with her mother the year before their fake ceremony. Jacky Jhaj, 39, who was described in a previous court case as a 'dangerous sexual predator', was arrested at the fake wedding, which took place at dawn on June 21 at the resort for a reported cost of €130,000 (£111,140). An actor hired to play the 'father' of the 'bride' told The Telegraph that Jhaj had known the girl and her mother for a year and that the three of them had gone on holiday together. 'This Ukrainian woman [the mother] told me that she had known this Jacky for a year. A year. He paid her money and helped her family,' said Vitalijs, 54, who declined to give his surname for 'security reasons'. 'They went somewhere together to relax, the three of them. I think he won her over with gifts. And if, as the girl's mother told me at the airport, they were on holiday together, the three of them,' he added. Police were called to the theme park after staff were alerted to the fact the 'bride', a Ukrainian national wearing a wedding dress and reportedly tottering on high heels, was a young child. Jhaj, who rented the resort outside of its opening hours for the fake wedding, was remanded in custody and charged with fraud, breach of trust, money laundering and identity theft. He has also been placed under assisted witness status for corruption of a minor. The child and her 41-year-old mother were released without charge. 'Father of bride' says he foiled plot Vitalijs, who told The Telegraph he was a former Soviet special forces sergeant, claimed he had foiled the plot. 'I know how to recognise threats and act in critical situations. I have special military training. This time, I couldn't stay silent,' he said, adding that he had been 'in a separate special forces unit of the GRU airborne troops' just before the fall of the Soviet Union. He said Jhaj told him the 'bride' would be played by the nine-year-old's mother, who he met a month before at a casting for the event in Brno, in the Czech Republic. Vitalijs said: 'I was paid €150 for the casting. They promised to pay €500 for one hour of filming in Paris,' he said. Previous reports had suggested he had been offered a far higher sum. He was only informed that the 'bride' was in fact the child and not the mother 'five hours before the ceremony', when he pulled out and was banned from attending by Jhaj. However, he went to Disneyland to inform management of the involvement of a minor. 'I knew I had to act. I snuck into Disneyland without a pass. One of the employees accompanied me. I had a handwritten note with me that said: 'This is not a real wedding. The girl is nine years old!' 'I approached the could see that the ceremony was taking place on the second floor. 'I entered the first floor and saw… a Disneyland employee who had been present at the online meeting. I immediately handed her the note. The [fake] wedding was stopped immediately.' Vitalijs said when he went to the police station, officers showed him a British passport with his photo on it. 'I found out that my passport had been forged. I only remember the first name, Mikhail. I don't remember the surname. 'I remembered that this girl in Riga had asked me for a passport photo 'for a pass to Disneyland',' he said, referring to another event organiser. 'Of course, I [told the police] that it wasn't me and that it wasn't my passport.' After the foiled event, he said he met the mother and the child at the police station when all three were released without charge. They travelled to the airport together, where she told him she had known Jhaj for a year and that she had been on holiday with him. Vitalijs said that after his service in Soviet special forces, he went on to train in London to become an 'international bodyguard' and was employed to protect several French film stars, including Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Glastonbury chanters or the Southport hate-tweeter – throw the book at one, you must throw it at them all
News that Avon and Somerset police have launched criminal investigations into the bands Bob Vylan and Kneecap for their Glastonbury sets reminds me that we have a severe prisons crisis in the UK, and that we need to build more of them. Perhaps we should build a special one for all the people we keep criminally investigating for saying, rather than doing, bad things. I'm pretty sure they have a few of those types of prisons in other countries. Although, it must be said that those are normally countries run by people we consider bad. Confusing! But look, maybe we're becoming the sort of country where we imprison lots of people for saying awful things. I don't … love this look for us, I have to say. But no doubt someone has thought it all through very, very carefully. If so, they could put the two nasty idiots from Bob Vylan in it. Obviously all of Kneecap, too. Maybe those guys would have their cell on the same landing as Lucy Connolly, the woman who was imprisoned for two years and seven months for a repulsive tweet in the wake of the Southport child killings. They could be joined by whoever at the BBC didn't pull the Glastonbury live stream on Saturday after Bob Vylan started their repulsive chants, given that Conservative frontbencher Chris Philp is now officially calling for the corporation to be 'urgently' investigated. I see Chris is also calling for the BBC to be prosecuted – so I guess he's already done the police investigation for them, and all at the same time as absolutely aceing his brief as shadow home secretary for where-are-they-now political outfit the Conservative party. In terms of Spewing Hate Into The Nation's Living RoomsTM, it must be said that the footage of Bob Vylan's offending set is still embedded into multiple stories on the MailOnline website, all containing an exhortation to 'watch the full video'. Should whoever is leaving the videos up on MailOnline also be investigated and prosecuted? Perhaps Chris Philp could adjudicate. Either way, let's keep a cell or five for them in the special new prison. After all, why on earth shouldn't we imprison a few journalists, too? In for a penny, and so on. Needless to say, embattled prime minister Keir Starmer has made time to have plenty of official views not just on the behaviour of the two bands, but on any future decisions to book them. If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail – and if your big job before politics was being director of public prosecutions, then I'm sure everything looks like a prosecutable offence. It certainly did to the prime minister after last summer's riots in the wake of the Southport murders, when Starmer seemed to relish the response happening the best way he knew how: by rushing it through the courts. Connolly was one of those prosecuted, in her case for a manifestly revolting and racist but also clearly tossed-off post responding to a false rumour the killer was an asylum seeker, saying people could set fire to asylum hotels 'for all I care'. She admitted inciting racial hatred in court, but has since become something of a cause celebre for the fact that she is a mother with an otherwise clean record (and one who had lost a young child herself), and that she has got a harsher sentence for this tweet that she later deleted than some convicted rapists. I wrote in the immediate wake of the riots that it was clear that something big had happened in the UK – though it wasn't yet precisely clear what. Unfortunately, the prime minister seemed to think it was fairly simple. 'Let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them,' he said, albeit to some reporters instead, 'violent disorder clearly whipped up online: that is also a crime. It's happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.' Sadiq Khan seemed to think it was something to do with the Online Safety Act not being 'fit for purpose'. In more successful hot takes, it was also the moment that Elon Musk test-drove his epithet 'two-tier Keir'. That one has stuck, and it will stick even harder if, for example, sublebrity band Bob Vylan don't get the book thrown at them in the same way that no-mark Lucy Connolly did. To be clear, I don't think any of the aforementioned lot ought to be in prison, however vile and unacceptable their behaviour was. But if you don't deal with them in pretty much the same way, then people are going to be talking far more loudly about two-tier justice again. This type of talk has already reached all the way into the Oval Office where, in February, vice-president JD Vance suggested to Starmer that the UK had a free speech problem. You might have seen that Bob Vylan have just promptly had their US visas revoked for what the deputy secretary of state called 'their hateful tirade'. But we can't expect consistency from the Trump administration. What we expect of our own country is infinitely more important. I used to think masses of legislation around what horrible things people could or couldn't say was a niche-application civilisational advance, but I have changed my view, and now fear we are sleepwalking towards a society where half the people will think certain incarcerated miscreants are political prisoners, and the other half will think a different bunch of incarcerated miscreants are political prisoners. I am very much for living in a country where we don't think we have political prisoners at all. Getting there isn't simple – but stopping travelling in the wrong direction would be a good start. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. This article's URL was amended shortly after publication to remove draft text that was included in error.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Germany foils 'Iranian spy's plot to attack Israeli and Jewish community leaders'
German officials have thwarted an alleged Iranian espionage plot to target Jewish people in Berlin. Federal prosecutor Jens Rommel said a suspect named 'Ali S.' was arrested in Aarhus, Denmark, last week after allegedly being commissioned by a unit of Tehran's military to prepare the attacks. The man is said to be a Danish national with Afghanistan heritage and had been scouting buildings and potential targets in the German capital - one of which included the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society. Der Spiegel reported that the other building Ali.S had been taking photos of was where the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, often stays. They say investigators believe that the man had been commissioned by the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who specialise in operations outside Iran and are said to have ties to Hamas and Hezbollah. The Quds Force were formerly headed-up by Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 by a US drone strike, and are now led by Esmail Ghaani - who was presumed dead after Israel 's strikes on Iran in June, but reports suggest he is still alive. Mr Schuster said: 'The arrest of a suspected spy for the Iranian terror regime, who is alleged to have deliberately spied on Jewish and Israeli institutions in Germany, is a clear alarm signal. 'This successful defense must be a final signal to all those who continue to downplay the mullah regime's hatred and fantasies of annihilation against Israel and Jews around the world.' Volker Beck, President of the German-Israeli Society, added: 'I thank the German security authorities for their vigilance. 'The fact that Iran is preparing and planning attacks against Jewish representatives and pro-Israel activists demonstrates the terrorist nature of this regime.' Speaking on a visit to Odesa in Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that, if confirmed, the incident 'would once again underline that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world'. The suspect will be brought before a judge at Germany's Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe after being extradited from Denmark, according to The Guardian. The Iranian embassy has called the allegations 'unfounded and dangerous' and implied that it was a false narrative. A statement from the embassy read: 'Previous discussions with relevant German authorities have already highlighted that certain third parties are attempting to divert public perceptions from the actual events through artificial staging.' The German Foreign Office yesterday posted on X to announce they had 'summoned' the Iranian ambassador to Germany, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, to the Federal Foreign Office. They added: 'We will not tolerate any threats to Jewish life in Germany. The suspicion against a man in Denmark of alleged espionage on behalf of Iran must be thoroughly investigated.' Germany has been on high alert for possible attacks against Jewish people since Hamas's assault on Israel on October 7, 2023. In September, German police shot dead a young Austrian man known to have had ties to radical Islam as he was preparing to carry out an attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich. Authorities have also been on alert for potential Iranian espionage activity on their soil. A German-Iranian national was jailed in late 2023 over a plot to attack a synagogue in the western German city of Bochum in 2022. Authorities said the plot was planned with the help of 'Iranian state agencies'.
