{"id":14720,"date":"2025-09-11T16:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/14720\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:26:08","slug":"eleanor-donaldson-requires-further-pre-trial-medical-assessment-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/14720\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleanor Donaldson requires further pre-trial medical assessment, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Further health assessments of Eleanor Donaldson, who is accused of sex offences along with her husband, the former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson<\/a>, are required to \u201ccomplete the medical picture\u201d, a court has been told.<\/p>\n

At a review hearing at Newry Crown Court on Thursday, a judge said he \u201cwants to preserve\u201d the trial date of early November, if he could.<\/p>\n

The trial had originally been scheduled for March but was put back due to a deterioration in Ms Donaldson\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

Judge Paul Ramsey confirmed he had received a psychiatric report on Ms Donaldson, following as assessment commissioned by her defence team to determine if she was medically fit to stand trial.<\/p>\n

Mr Donaldson (62) with an address in Dromore, Co Down, previously pleaded not guilty to 18 offences \u2013 one count of rape, four of gross indecency with or towards a child, and 13 of indecent assault on a female, on dates between 1987 and 2008.<\/p>\n

Ms Donaldson (59), of the same address, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband.<\/p>\n

Mr and Ms Donaldson were not in court on Thursday, as neither defendant was required to attend.<\/p>\n

During the brief hearing, Ms Donaldson\u2019s defence barrister said the contents of the forensic psychiatric report had led them to seek out the expert opinion of a neurologist, with an appointment set for the end of this month. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing everything we can as quickly as we can to complete the medical picture,\u201d said barrister Ian Turkington.<\/p>\n

Separate expert medical assessments commissioned by the prosecution will begin next week, prosecuting barrister Fiona O\u2019Kane told the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a particular issue which has arisen and she (a doctor) recommended the input of a further professional to assist her assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms O\u2019Kane said this further assessment would take place in October.<\/p>\n

The judge said he appreciated all the work done and that \u201call these aspects are looked at fully, as they should be.\u201d <\/p>\n

The next review hearing will take place on October 10th. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully you will be able to give a distinct view (in October) on whether or not this matter can proceed, as I intend to have it proceed, at the beginning of November,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson. Photograph: Liam McBurney\/ PA <\/p>\n

Mr Donaldson, the long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after he was arrested and charged in March 2024.<\/p>\n

Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into Stormont after a two-year boycott of the Northern powersharing institutions.<\/p>\n

The then deputy leader, Gavin Robinson, was appointed his successor as DUP leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Further health assessments of Eleanor Donaldson, who is accused of sex offences along with her husband, the former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14063,42,14062,43,2443,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-14720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dup-links","tag-headlines","tag-jeffrey-donaldson","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}