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Conor McGregor. RollingNews.ie

McGregor must give a sworn statement about the hotel CCTV footage - so what happens next?

A High Court judge this week ordered the MMA fighter not to disseminate the footage that was shown in court during the civil case taken against him by Nikita Hand.

A HIGH COURT judge this week ordered Conor McGregor not to disseminate CCTV footage that was shown during the civil trial taken against him by Nikita Hand, and to destroy any copies he still had of the footage. 

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.

The jury found that the second defendant, James Lawrence, of Rafter’s Road in Drimnagh, did not assault Hand. Both men had denied her claims. 

This week, solicitors for Hand sought an injunction to stop McGregor from publishing or disseminating CCTV footage that was shown in court during the civil trial, after a business associate of McGregor was quoted in two newspapers last weekend indicating that the footage would be released in January. 

At a High Court hearing on Thursday, Mr Justice Alexander Owens ordered McGregor not to disseminate the footage, to return any copies of the footage to his solicitors, to arrange for the permanent deletion of any copies he has and to retrieve and destroy any copies provided to other people.

McGregor must also swear an affidavit detailing what copies he made of the footage and what steps he has taken to delete it, the judge said. 

The case will return to court on 12 February. 

So what are the next steps in the process? 

The discovery process 

The CCTV footage, which was shown several times in court during the trial and was the subject of media coverage throughout the hearing, was provided to solicitors for McGregor and Hand as part of the discovery process in the civil case. 

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.

The Journal spoke to legal experts to ask what might happen in cases where a party in a proceeding had been ordered not to share or otherwise disseminate video footage or other evidence, if it later transpired that they had shared that footage. 

Hugh Mohan, a barrister and former chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland, said that if evidence that was obtained under discovery was used for another purpose, effectively breaching the court order, the claimant in the case could file an application for contempt of court. 

This is done by serving an order of attachment, which asks that the person to whom the order is directed be brought before the court to answer the complaint of contempt.

That person is brought before the court to answer the contempt. The claimant will set out where they believe that the breach of the order was and where the evidence was used in circumstances where it should not have been used.

After hearing both sides, the judge then gives a ruling. 

“If the judge rules a defendant is in contempt of court, they have to purge their contempt of court by saying they’re sorry,” Mohan told The Journal.

However, the defendant could still face being sent to prison or being fined.

“The penalties can be attachment and committal, which is a prison sentence that can be either until you purge your contempt or a finite period in prison because of your breach of the order, or you could have sequestration of assets or a monetary fine.”

If a third party was to use evidence that was obtained under discovery outside of the court proceedings, they too could be found to be in contempt of court.

“What happens then is that the counsel could say, ‘I now require that person to attend to court’, or they could be done for attachment and committal, because they, too, have breached an order. They’ve used material which was in the court for purposes other than for which it was intended,” Mohan said.

“The same rules still apply for a third party. Whoever uses evidence for purposes other than the case is outside what it was allowed for.”

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