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Conor McGregor has spoken out after losing a civil rape case as a feminist march was held in Dublin.

The MMA fighter was accused of raping Nikita Hand, who was awarded €248,603 (£206,000) in damages on Friday after a jury at Dublin’s High Court found McGregor assaulted her in a Dublin hotel in 2018.

Nikita Ni Laimhin, who is also known as Nikita Hand, leaving the High Court in Dublin, where she is claiming civil damages against mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor and another man, alleging she was sexually assaulted in December 2018. Picture date: Tuesday November 19, 2024.
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Nikita Hand.
Pic: PA

Posting on social media, the 36-year-old said: “I know I made mistakes”.

It comes as hundreds of people in Dublin staged a demonstration in “utter solidarity” with Ms Hand.

Posting on X, McGregor said: “People want to hear from me, I needed time. I know I made mistakes. Six years ago, I should have never responded to her outreaches. I should have shut the party down. I should never have stepped out on the woman I love the most in the world. That’s all on me.

“As much as I regret it, everything that happened that night was consensual and all the witnesses present swore to that under oath. I have instructed my legal team to appeal the decision.

“I can’t go back and I will move forward. I am beyond grateful to my family, friends and supporters all over the world who have stayed by my side.

“That’s it. No more. Getting back to the gym- the fight game awaits!”

Mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor (centre) and partner Dee Devlin leave the High Court in Dublin after the personal injury case against him. Nikita Hand, who is also known as Nikita Ni Laimhin, alleges she was raped by McGregor in a Dublin hotel in December 2018. After deliberating for six hours and 10 minutes, the jury returned with their verdicts in the civil trial against Conor McGregor. The total amount of damages awarded to Nikita Hand by the jury was 248,603.60 euro. Picture date: Friday November 22, 2024. PA Photo. See PA story IRISH McGregor. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
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Conor McGregor (centre) and partner Dee Devlin leave the High Court in Dublin after he lost a civil case.
Pic: PA

Speaking outside court after the decision, an emotional Ms Hand said the two-week-long civil case had been a “nightmare” but that “justice has been served”.

“It’s something that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life,” she added.

In Dublin on Monday night, a march in support of Ms Hand was organised by the socialist feminist movement group Rosa to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The demonstration in Dublin called for increased action on violence. 
Pic: PA
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The demonstration in Dublin.
Pic: PA

Ruth Coppinger and Natasha O'Brien at the solidarity march.
Pic: PA
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Ruth Coppinger (left) and Natasha O’Brien at the solidarity march.
Pic: PA

Participants chanted “stand with Nikita” and “no more fear, no more shaming, we reject your victim blaming” as they carried signs and banners through the capital’s streets.

Ruth Coppinger, a councillor and general election candidate, and Natasha O’Brien, who became a public figure after a soldier received a suspended sentence for assaulting her, both spoke at the event.

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Ms Coppinger said Ms Hand was “an incredibly brave woman” and that she was watching the event via a live stream.

Ms O’Brien was cheered as she said she’d been “in awe” of Ms Hand’s courage and that Ireland had let out a collective “sigh of relief” after the jury found in Ms Hand’s favour.

McGregor was accused of having “brutally raped and battered” Ms Hand.

She was taken in an ambulance to the Rotunda Hospital the following day where the paramedic who assessed her told the court she had not seen “someone so bruised” in a long time.

Following eight days of evidence, and three days of closing speeches and the judge’s instructions to the jury, the jury of eight women and four men spent six hours and ten minutes deliberating before returning their verdict.

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Trump team will worry about Washington attacker being glorified

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Trump team will worry about Washington attacker being glorified

There are multiple layers to this shocking act of extreme violence.

The presence of the US attorney general at a midnight news conference is a clear indication of the Trump administration’s shock and swift reaction. Pam Bondi had already visited the scene of the attack.

The president himself was quick to comment on social media, calling it out as antisemitism and saying: “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Israeli embassy staff shooting suspect ‘shouted free Palestine’ – follow live updates

A man with an Israeli flag kneels at the scene.
Pic: Reuters
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A man with an Israeli flag kneels at the scene. Pic: Reuters

There will be immediate questions for the US authorities about the security of Israeli diplomats. The shooting happened in the downtown area of DC, not far from the FBI field office and the FBI headquarters.

The two victims are understood to be junior aides and so probably not considered particular targets. But the shooting will prompt a fresh look at diplomatic security arrangements.

A video has emerged online said to show the gunman calmly shouting “free free Palestine” as he was detained by museum security.

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Tearful witness: ‘He shot this young couple’

Pro-Palestinian protests have been intense on college campuses, outside embassies and elsewhere; the Israeli embassy in Washington has been a particular focus of protesters.

Last year, a 25-year-old active duty US airman immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington to protest the war in Gaza.

Israel’s diplomatic relations with close allies, including the UK, France and others, have become increasingly strained over the methods used in its continuing war in Gaza.

Read more:
Sex offenders could face chemical castration
Meet staff crossing gang lines to battle malnutrition in Haiti
Trump ambushes South African president at White House meeting

Emergency services at the scene of the shooting. Pic: AP
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Emergency services at the scene of the shooting. Pic: AP

Pic: Reuters
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Pic: Reuters

Authorities will also be braced for how this incident plays in the days ahead.

There will be a concern within the Trump administration that this man’s actions will be given some glorification in parts of society, mainly online, in the same way Luigi Mangione became not just infamous but famous for allegedly shooting dead a healthcare executive in protest of corporate greed.

Expect prompt condemnation from the White House of any such glorification.

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There is also a deeply tragic twist to this shooting. The two young victims were a couple and were due to travel to Jerusalem in the days ahead to become engaged.

I’ve been in touch with contacts at the Israeli embassy where the entire team is in shock and reeling at the loss of two of their own on the streets of Washington.

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Washington suspect told witness he ‘did this for Gaza’ in frenzied moments after Israeli embassy workers shot dead

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Washington suspect told witness he 'did this for Gaza' in frenzied moments after Israeli embassy workers shot dead

Witnesses have told Sky News of the moments after a man shot two Israeli embassy staff members outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgram, a couple who were about to become engaged, were shot dead as they left the Annual Young Diplomats reception at the Capital Jewish Museum in the US capital.

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Footage emerges of Washington suspect

The suspect, named as Elias Rodriguez by police, shot at a group of four people just over a mile from the White House and then chanted a pro-Palestinian slogan in custody.

The event organiser told Sky News she handed the suspect water, mistakenly believing him to be an “innocent bystander”.

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Shooting suspect shouted ‘free Palestine’

Jojo Drake Kalin said the event was wrapping up when she headed to the lobby to find “commotion and a frenzy” but at that time, no one was aware two people had lost their lives.

“The gunshots were heard, so security started locking the doors and that is when I saw who I now know is the… murderer of this Israeli-Jewish couple,” she said.

Analysis: Trump team will worry about Washington attacker being glorified

Ms Drake Kalin didn’t find out until “much later” who she was actually talking to.

“I see him [and] he seems very distraught. I now understand it’s because he killed two people point-blank. [I] offered him water, he accepted,” she said.

“The second I’ve handed him water, he whips out his keffiyeh [a scarf] and yells ‘Free Palestine’ and then he’s subdued by the officers on scene.”

Ms Drake Kalin said the event was themed around “bridge-building” between Israeli and Palestinian communities.

She called it “painfully ironic” that someone came in with “such hate and destruction”, considering the event’s theme.

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Tearful witness: ‘He shot this young couple’

Another witness, John Elleson, cried as he told Sky News correspondent Ashish Joshi what he saw.

“A guy came up and… looked like [he had a] gun, I couldn’t tell what it was, but I heard it afterwards, the shots, and he shot this young couple,” he said.

“He ran inside and yelled something.

“It was terrible. It was terrible.”

Another eyewitness, Katie Kalisher, said it was around 9.07pm when she heard gunshots.

“Then a man comes in. He looks really distressed and people are talking to him and trying to calm him down,” she said.

“Eventually, he comes over to where I was and we were like, ‘Do you need any water?’, ‘Are you okay?'”

Ms Kalisher said the suspect asked her what kind of museum he was in and when she replied, “It’s a Jewish museum,” he said: “Do you think that’s why they did this?”

She told him she didn’t think so but he then reached into his bag and pulled out a keffiyeh.

“[He] says, ‘I did it. I did this for Gaza’ – and just starts shouting ‘free Palestine’ and that’s when the police came in and arrested him,” said Ms Kalisher.

The reaction to the shooting has been one of shock, with President Donald Trump condemning the “horrible killings” which he said were “based obviously on antisemitism”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his heart ached for the families of the victims, “whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer”.

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The staff crossing gang lines to battle malnutrition and cholera in Haiti capital

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The staff crossing gang lines to battle malnutrition and cholera in Haiti capital

In a simple breezeblock and cement building, cholera patients are attached to drips as they lie sprawled on hard, wooden beds.

In one section, two young boys stare into the distance through listless eyes. They are very poorly, the staff tell us, but now they are here, they will survive.

Two boys at the Fontaine Hospital in Haiti.
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Two boys at the Fontaine Hospital

Medical staff check on their patients in the relatively cool interior of the wards, while outside the sun beats down on the grounds of the rough and ready interconnected buildings of the Fontaine Hospital in Port-au-Prince.

The hospital is built amid the slums in an area of Haiti’s capital known as Cite Soleil – or Sun City.

A malnourished child at the Fontaine Hospital.
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‘All the infants are malnourished’ at the Fontaine Hospital, writes Sky’s Stuart Ramsay

This suburb is widely regarded to be the birthplace of the gangs of Port-au-Prince, and this section of the city has been violent and dangerous for decades.

Civil society doesn’t function here. Indeed, the Fontaine Hospital is the only medical facility still operating in the gang-controlled areas of Cite Soleil.

Without it, the people who live here would have no access to doctors or medical care.

How did gangs take over Haiti? Watch Q&A with Stuart Ramsay

I’m standing in the cholera ward with Jose Ulysse, the hospital’s founder. He opened the hospital 32 years ago. It’s a charity, run purely on donations.

Mr Ulysse explained that the increasing gang violence across the whole of Port-au-Prince, and the chaos it is causing, means people are herded into displacement camps, which in turn means that cholera outbreaks are getting worse.

Jose Ulysse, Fontaine Hospital founder.
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Jose Ulysse, Fontaine Hospital founder

“Cholera is always present, but there’s a time when it’s more,” he told me.

“Lately because of all the displacement camps there is a great deal of promiscuity and rape, and we have an increase in cases.”

As we spoke, I asked him about the two young boys, and a small group of women on drips in the ward.

“Now they are here, they will be okay, but if they weren’t here and this hospital wasn’t here, they would be dead by now,” he replied when I asked him about their condition.

Jose Ulysse and Stuart Ramsay.
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Jose Ulysse and Sky’s Stuart Ramsay

We left the cholera ward, cleaning our hands and shoes with disinfectant, before moving on to the next part of the hospital under pressure – the malnutrition ward.

“Malnutrition and cholera go hand-in-hand,” Mr Ulysse explained as we walked.

In the clinic, we meet parents and their little ones – all the infants are malnourished.

The mothers – and important to note – one father, are given food to feed their babies.

Read more of Stuart Ramsey’s reporting in Haiti:
Children going to school in Haiti dodge gunfire
Listen: Reporting from Haiti’s urban war zone
Soldiers face ‘raining bullets’ from Haiti’s gangs

A malnourished child at the Fontaine Hospital.
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Distended tummies are ‘giveaway signs’ of malnutrition

Those who are in the worst condition are also fed by a drip. One of the giveaway signs of malnutrition is a distended tummy, and most of these babies have that.

Poverty and insecurity combine to cause this, Mr Ulysse tells me. And like cholera, malnutrition is getting worse.

He explained that when the violence increases, parents can’t go to work because it is too dangerous, so they end up not being able to make a living, which means that they can’t feed their children properly.

The medics and hospital workers risk their lives every day, crossing gang lines and territories to get to the hospital and care for their patients.

Mothers and children at the Fontaine Hospital in Haiti.
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Mothers and their children at the Fontaine Hospital in gang-controlled Cite Soleil

NICU Unit at Fontaine Hospital.
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NICU unit at Fontaine Hospital

The reason why this hospital is so popular is because staff show up, even when the fighting is at its worst.

Despite their meagre resources, the Fontaine Hospital’s intensive care unit for premature babies is busy – it is widely regarded as one of the best facilities of its kind in the country.

A team of nurses, masked and in scrubs, tenderly care for these tiny children, some of whom are only hours old.

They are some of the most incredibly vulnerable.

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I asked Mr Ulysse what would happen if his hospital wasn’t there.

“Just imagine, there isn’t a place where they can go, everyone comes here, normally the poorest people in the country”, he told me.

But he stressed that the only way the hospital can keep going is through donations, and the cuts to the US government’s USAID programme has had a direct impact on the hospital’s donors.

A young boy at the Fontaine Hospital.
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The hospital is run by donations, which have been affected by cuts from the US government’s USAID programme

Attacks on hospitals and staff working in the toughest areas across Port-au-Prince have become common.

We filmed outside one of the two Médecins Sans Frontières facilities in the centre of the capital, where work has been suspended because their staff were threatened or attacked.

Medical personnel from the health ministry in Port-au-Prince tell us over 70 per cent of all medical facilities in Port-au-Prince have been shut. Only one major public hospital, the Le Paix Hospital, is open.

Haiti - gang controlled - map
Haiti map

The Le Paix Hospital’s executive director, Dr Paul Junior Fontilus, says he is perplexed by the gang’s targeting of medical facilities.

“It makes no sense, it’s crazy, we don’t know what it is they want,” he said as we walked through the hospital.

The hospital is orderly and functioning well, considering the pressure it is under. They are dealing with more and more cases of cholera, an increase in gunshot wounds and sexual violence.

“We are overrun with demand, and this surpasses our capacity to respond,” he explained to me.

“But we are obliged to meet the challenge and offer services to the population.”

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Haiti: An eyewitness account

Gang violence is crushing the life out of Port-au-Prince, affecting all of society. And, as is often the case, the most vulnerable in society suffer the most.

Stuart Ramsay reports from Haiti with camera operator Toby Nash, senior foreign producer Dominique Van Heerden, and producers Brunelie Joseph and David Montgomery.

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