Nikita Hand had a compelling reason to not pursue a civil rape case against Conor McGregor. She was, in her own view, an imperfect victim.

The day of the assault, she had been partying with alcohol and cocaine before contacting McGregor, who took her to a Dublin hotel.

Hours later, bruised and stunned, Hand made a report to police, but Irish authorities declined to pursue a criminal case against the mixed martial artist, saying there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction.

That left the option of a civil case. But that would strip the hairdresser of anonymity, and pit her against a powerful celebrity who denied wrongdoing and had teams of lawyers and a vast online following. Hand went for it.

“I’m not the perfect victim and I never portrayed myself to be,” she said in an interview in Dublin. “But I feel when victims are not perfect, they seem to get blamed. And I really wanted to try to change the stigma around people thinking you have to be a perfect victim to be believed or heard.”

The cross-examination in the witness box at Dublin high court in 2024 felt like another violation, but Hand emerged victorious: the jury found that McGregor had assaulted her in 2018 and awarded nearly €250,000 in damages.