A woman who accused Jeffrey Donaldson of raping her as a child told police he apologised to her for “what he’d done to me in the past”, Newry Crown Court has heard.
She said the “apology” took place at a meeting arranged at the Christian Family Centre in Armoy, Co Antrim, when she was 17 or 18 years old.
“He came and apologised to me … he apologised for what he’d done to me in the past.”
Asked by police how she knew the apology was for the alleged sexual abuse, the witness, known as Complainant B, said it was because she told the daughter of the couple who ran the centre, Linda and Davey Hoy, about the abuse, and she told her parents.
Complainant B told police the defendant’s wife, Eleanor Donaldson, contacted her through an intermediary in 2023 to tell her she “wanted to meet to apologise to me”.
Complainant B said Linda Hoy sent her a message saying Eleanor Donaldson “needs my forgiveness to move forward”. She did not respond to the request.
Earlier on Tuesday, a police interview with the complainant, in which she alleged the former DUP leader raped her as a primary schoolchild, was played at his trial.
Complainant B told police she remembered him “putting his hands inside my pants” and then “pulling my legs apart with his two feet”.
She told police she “was still pretending to be asleep hoping it would stop”.
“I felt really, really sick.”
She said that while the alleged abuse was taking place, she remembered thinking “please let that be it” because “it had happened before”.
She described how he then raped her.
“I just wanted to scream out, leave me alone, but I didn’t.”
She remembered his breathing “wasn’t just in and out, it was laboured and panting”.
The following day she felt “sick” with a “sore stomach” and did not want to go on an outing.
“Everyone made fun of me for not wanting to go and I couldn’t tell them why.”
Jeffrey Donaldson (63), with an address in Dromore, Co Down, is accused of 18 offences – one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency with or towards a child and 13 counts of indecent assault on a female, on dates between 1985 and 2008. He denies the charges.
On the fourth day of evidence in his trial at Newry Crown Court on Tuesday morning, jurors listened to the police interview with Complainant B in which she described two specific incidents, the alleged rape and a second assault in which she said the defendant followed her into a room and “closed the door”.
She claimed he “lifted up my top and started playing with my breasts and stuff”.
Donaldson’s wife Eleanor “walked in” but “turned round and walked out”, closing the door behind her, the complainant said.
Eleanor Donaldson (60), of the same address, is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband – charges she denies.
Eleanor Donaldson is not present in court as she has been ruled unfit to stand trial on the basis of medical evidence. She is instead facing a trial of the facts, which replaces a criminal trial in such circumstances. This is running concurrently with her husband’s trial, which began last week.
In the police interview, the complainant said Jeffrey Donaldson “put his hands in my pants a lot”.
She said she “couldn’t tell anybody” about the alleged abuse but she remembered “telling my imaginary friend”.
The trial continues.