Samantha O'Reilly and Steven Cummins have been charged with perjury over affidavits they swore on behalf of Conor McGregor ahead of his civil appeal against a finding that he sexually assaulted Nikita Hand.
The pair appeared before Dublin District Court on Tuesday morning after an investigation by Irish police into evidence filed in McGregor's failed appeal against the jury's finding that he raped Ms Hand.
Charges of false statements
The two have been charged with giving statements in judicial proceedings which were false, and they knew to be false. Ms O'Reilly faces two counts of giving false statements in January and May of last year.
The 38-year-old was arrested alongside Mr Cummins, 39, at their home in Cherry Orchard Green, Ballyfermot, on Tuesday morning. Both were remanded on continuing bail until November 9.
Background to the arrests
Ms O'Reilly and Mr Cummins were arrested last year after a court in Dublin referred claims made by them as part of McGregor's appeal to the director of public prosecutions (DPP) over perjury concerns.
It came after a request by the lawyer of Ms Hand, 35, who successfully sued McGregor in a civil court over an incident in which he was alleged to have “brutally raped and battered” her in a penthouse at a south Dublin hotel in December 2018.
Appeal and withdrawn evidence
McGregor, who told the court he had consensual sex with Ms Hand, launched an appeal after a jury of eight women and four men found him civilly liable for assault. That appeal was expected to contain fresh evidence following an affidavit from Ms O'Reilly, who was a former neighbour of Ms Hand, who claimed she had witnessed a physical row between Ms Hand and her then-partner at about the same time of the incident at the Beacon hotel.
Ms Hand denied any altercation with her former partner, and the court heard last year that she characterised the claims from Ms O'Reilly and Mr Cummins as “lies”.
The new evidence, however, was unexpectedly withdrawn as part of the appeal, with McGregor's legal team telling the court that it would no longer be relying on the material. Mr Justice O'Moore said at the time that the manner in which the new evidence was abandoned “in the last moment… remain mysterious”.
Outcome of the appeal
McGregor later lost his appeal against the civil jury's finding on all five grounds that the case was taken. The Supreme Court also refused to hear appeals from McGregor in relation to her civil case against them.
Ms Hand, also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, was awarded 248,603.60 euro in damages and McGregor was also ordered to pay about 1.3 million euro in legal costs following November's trial.
