A woman has told a High Court jury she thought she was going to die when Conor McGregor was “drowning” her in a hotel bedroom.

“I froze and I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breathe. I kept looking at the bedpost and I thought about my daughter, I thought I’m going to die, I’m never going to see my daughter again,” said Nikita Hand.

She said Mr McGregor let her go and kept saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, “to calm him down so he wouldn’t hurt me again”.

He said “that’s how I felt when I was in the Octagon when I had to fight three times,” she said.

She said he promised her not to tell anyone “and I let him do whatever he had to do so I could survive.”

She said “my mind was completely gone, I wasn’t myself anymore”. He was “very aggressive” with her, pulling her clothes and pushing her upside down “to do things”. He was trying to push her head down to his penis and she was trying to pull away, she said.

At one point, her clothes were completely off and so were his, she said.

“He raped me,” she told the court, saying she had a tampon inside her at the time.

These events took place on December 9, 2018, and Ms Hand attended the Rotunda Hospital’s sexual assault trauma unit on December 10, 2018, the jury heard.

Ms Hand said on Wednesday that she made a statement to gardaí in January 2019 and that she was “absolutely devastated” when she was later told that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had decided there was insufficient evidence for the DPP to prosecute Mr McGregor or James Lawrence on the basis of her claims against them. Mrs Hand sought a review of this but the decision was upheld following the review, the jury was told.

The DPP’s correspondence noted the case was complex and the director concluded there was “no reasonable prospect” of either man being convicted.

Ms Hand was granted breaks due to becoming very distressed after resuming her evidence on Wednesday, the second day of her civil action for damages for allegedly sexually assaulting her by Mr McGregor on December 9, 2018 in the penthouse apartment of a Dublin hotel. She alleged a separate sexual assault on her on the same date by James Lawrence, of Rafters Road, Drimnagh.

Both men deny allegations of sexual assault.

The attacks are alleged to have taken place after Ms Hand and a co-worker went to the hotel with Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence.

Ms Hand said both women had been to a Christmas party the night before, they continued to party until the early hours and she contacted Mr McGregor about partying more.

She said she had taken cocaine and alcohol and that Mr McGregor had given both women cocaine when they were in the car with him. He had no recollection of him or Mr. Lawrence taking cocaine.

When the case resumed on Wednesday, Ms Hand was asked by her counsel Ray Boland SC to pick up her evidence from Tuesday, where she said Mr McGregor held her down on a bed in the hotel flat.

Becoming distressed, she said he “pressed his whole body on top of me so I couldn’t breathe” and she raised her arms in front of her chest.

“I couldn’t move or breathe, the more I tried to get away from him and fight, the more he liked it,” she said. Mr McGregor had said: “Yes, I like that,” she said.

“The only thing I could move was my head, so my defense was to bite,” she said. She said she bit Mr. McGregor, she couldn’t remember exactly where. “He didn’t like that, so he flipped me over.”

At that point, she became very upset and told the judge: “I can’t do this, I can’t, I’m really struggling with this right now. I’m sorry.”

When Mr Justice Alexander Owens asked her if she would like a break, she said yes and the court adjourned for five minutes.

When she resumed, Ms Hand said she tried to get Mr McGregor to “stop what he was doing” before holding her to the bed.

She said he bit him “really hard” and tried to fight as hard as he could and he didn’t like being bitten, she said. She said she was sitting on the bed at the time, he was behind her, put his arm around her neck “and choked me three times”.

She “completely thought I was going to die.”

“When he raped me, I was completely numb,” she said. She “completely froze.”

She said it “just got off me” and she was done. She said he started to put on her clothes, told her to lie on the bed with him and she fell asleep.

When she woke up, she panicked about the time, but the clocks on Mr. McGregor’s watch and hers weren’t working. She took her phone out of her bag and texted her then-partner that she was having a great time. “I just didn’t want them to worry.”

She said Mr McGregor was bringing his friend home in his car and she and Mr Lawrence got out with them in the car park and then returned to the room.

He recalled collapsing in the room and seeing his bruises and told Mr Lawrence: “You’re all turning a blind eye to what Conor was doing.”

She said he said “What are you trying to say, Conor did this to you?” and put her hand to her head and said she couldn’t believe she was in the hotel suite when this was happening in the other room.

She later went to a friend’s house, told her friend what happened and who was involved. Her friend was very upset with her and told her not to shower and to call the Rape Crisis Center.

Her friend was shocked by how many bruises were on her body, she said, becoming very distressed. Her friend took photos of the bruises but she told him the next day to delete them because she didn’t want anyone to know, Ms Hand said.

Mr Boland then forwarded Ms Hand text messages between her and her friend during December 11, 2018. In these, Ms Hand told her friend, among other things, that she had been raped.

The case continues.