The pair, both from Cherry Orchard Green in the Dublin suburb of Ballyfermot, appeared at Dublin District Court on Tuesday, 29 September. Judge Michele Finan was told the Director of Public Prosecutions wants both tried on indictment, which sends the case to the Circuit Criminal Court for a jury trial.

O’Reilly, 38, faces two counts, one tied to a statement dated 14 January 2025 and another to a statement from 6 May of the same year. Cummins, 39, faces a single count linked to the January statement. Both are charged under the Criminal Justice (Perjury and Related Offences) Act 2021, which allows a maximum sentence of ten years.

What the affidavits claimed

In their sworn statements, the two said they had lived opposite Nikita Hand and her then-partner in 2018. O’Reilly claimed she had seen the former partner moving in a way that made her believe he was hitting Hand, and Cummins said he had been woken by O’Reilly and their daughter and heard screaming coming from Hand’s house.

Those claims were the backbone of a late attempt by McGregor’s legal team to introduce new evidence at the Court of Appeal, framed as a suggestion that Hand’s injuries could have come from someone other than the former UFC champion.

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Pulled hours before the hearing

The appeal was listed to open in Dublin on 1 July 2025. On the morning the hearing was due to start, McGregor’s lawyers withdrew the application to put the fresh evidence before the three-judge panel. The court later said no plausible reason had been offered for dropping such a significant part of his case at the last minute.

The three judges then rejected McGregor’s challenge in full, upholding the November 2024 jury verdict that found him liable for assault and awarded Hand €248,603.60 in damages. The court referred the withdrawn material to the Director of Public Prosecutions, which triggered the Garda investigation that led to Tuesday’s arrests.

McGregor has run out of appeals

McGregor pushed the case one step further by seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. That bid was refused on 4 December 2025, with the judges saying they were satisfied he had received a fair hearing and that no issue of general public importance had been raised. The civil finding against him is now final.

O’Reilly and Cummins were released on bail with conditions that include weekly sign-ins at Ballyfermot Garda Station, a working phone number for Gardaí at all times, and no contact, direct, indirect, or through social media, with any witness in the case.

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Both are due back at Dublin District Court on 9 November, when prosecutors are expected to serve the book of evidence and formally send the case forward for trial.

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