Couple Faces Legal Action Over Perjury Allegations in Conor McGregor Appeal

DUBLIN — A couple who may face perjury charges related to UFC fighter Conor McGregor’s failed appeal were confronted this week, maintaining their innocence and declaring, “We’re not liars.”

Samantha O’Reilly and Stephen Cummins, who were initially introduced as key witnesses by McGregor’s legal team before their statements were dramatically withdrawn, are now at the centre of multiple legal proceedings. The pair have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for investigation, and are also being sued by Nikita Hand for alleged malicious abuse of the judicial process.

When approached by the Irish Mirror at their residence in west Dublin, the couple reacted angrily. Ms. O’Reilly launched a profanity-laced tirade from her window, insisting she was unfazed by public criticism. “Yeah, I don’t care. The whole world can call me whatever. I know what I am,” she said, before adding, “Want to put that in your paper? Do you want to have blood on your hands, do you?”

Mr. Cummins refused to comment, telling reporters to leave the premises. “No, I’m not a liar. Just go away, will you please,” he said, retreating indoors.

Ms. O’Reilly continued to shout from the window, accusing the press of harassment and threatening legal action. “You’re getting sued. Come back here again and I’m ringing the police,” she said, branding reporters as “scum.”

The couple’s statements were originally presented by McGregor’s legal team as “new evidence” in his appeal against a jury verdict that found him guilty of raping Ms. Hand at Dublin’s Beacon Hotel in December 2018. However, just moments before the appeal was due to be heard, McGregor’s counsel withdrew the testimony of both O’Reilly and Cummins, as well as that of former Northern Ireland State Pathologist Professor Jack Crane. The dramatic reversal led McGregor’s legal representatives to concede the appeal was “unsustainable.”

In a stinging judgment, Court of Appeal Judge Brian O’Moore accused McGregor of launching a “root and branch attack” on the jury’s original finding through the deployment of questionable new evidence. “The conduct of Mr. McGregor, in publicly introducing evidence which fundamentally called into question the correctness of the jury's verdict... only to abandon that evidence when it was about to be tested, is behaviour which deserves to be marked by a palpable sign of the court’s displeasure and disapproval,” Judge O’Moore stated.

He added that the last-minute decision to retract the evidence suggested the existence of a deeper issue. “Some other factor, upon which this court does not wish to speculate, led to the abrupt decision to scuttle one of the more significant (and certainly the most public) grounds of appeal advanced on behalf of Mr. McGregor.”

During proceedings, Ms. Hand’s legal team argued that the now-withdrawn statements were lies. Her senior counsel, John Gordon SC, said McGregor’s team had effectively conceded that point. “My client has been put through the wringer yet again. She answered in her affidavit that it was all lies. That has now been conceded,” he told the court.

Gordon also criticised the timing of the withdrawal, stating the decision was communicated to him just ten minutes before the hearing began, and accused McGregor’s legal team of attempting to “waltz in here and think they can walk away from this.”

Following the hearing, the Court of Appeal referred the matter to the DPP to determine whether perjury charges should be pursued against O'Reilly and Cummins.