Photo: The Canadian Press

DUBLIN (AP) — A woman who accused Conor McGregor of sexually assaulting her in a Dublin hotel in 2018 testified in an Irish court Tuesday at the start of a civil case seeking financial damages against the arts star mixed martial arts.

McGregor was at the High Court in Dublin for the start of a case 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 allegationssaying Irish police investigated and declined to press charges.

In her testimony, the woman said she told McGregor she did not feel comfortable after being left alone with him in a bedroom in the penthouse apartment of a Dublin hotel, British news agency PA reported.

“I tried to talk to him, that I didn’t want to have sex and that I wasn’t there 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 were known because they were in the same age group, from the same area, had mutual friends and had been in contact at various times through social media.

Daniel Keane, who works as a gynecologist as well as a coroner in sexual assault cases, also gave evidence on the first day of the case. Keane said the woman was “shaking and crying” after being brought in by ambulance the day after the alleged attack at the hospital where she worked. He detailed the bruising on the woman’s body and said the extent of it was “quite unusual”.

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

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