DUBLIN-

A woman accusing Conor McGregor of sexually assaulting her in a Dublin hotel in 2018 testified in an Irish court on Tuesday at the start of a civil case seeking financial damages against the mixed martial arts star.

McGregor was at the High Court in Dublin for the start of a case which is expected to last around two weeks.

The alleged incident took place on December 9, 2018, and the civil suit was filed in 2021. McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, are the defendants.

A spokesperson for McGregor previously denied the allegations, saying Irish police had investigated and declined to press charges.

In her testimony, the woman said she told McGregor she didn’t feel comfortable after being left alone with him in a room in the penthouse suite of a Dublin hotel, the agency reported. British PA Press.

“I tried to make him understand that I didn’t want to have sex and that I wasn’t here for anything like that,” the woman said of McGregor in the courtroom. “He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

John Gordon, the woman’s lawyer, said she and McGregor knew each other because they were in the same age group, came from the same area, had mutual friends and had been in contact several times through social networks. social.

Daniel Keane, who works as a gynecologist as well as a forensic scientist in sexual assault cases, also testified on the first day of the case. Keane said the woman was “shaking and crying” after being taken by ambulance the day after the alleged assault to the hospital where he worked. He detailed the bruising on the woman’s body and said their extent was “quite unusual”.

PA reported that McGregor’s lawyers would argue that the act between him and the woman was consensual. It was not yet clear when they would present their arguments.