![\"Court](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/prosecution-opens-against-jeffrey-donaldson-in-sexual-offences-trial.jpg\")
Court artist drawing of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson appearing at Newry Crown Court (Elizabeth Cook\/PA)<\/p>\nTwo women who accused Jeffrey Donaldson of sexually abusing them claim the former DUP leader subjected them to \u201cdifficult and traumatic incidents\u201d when they were children, his trial has heard.<\/p>\n
The prosecution case against Donaldson has been set out for the jury at Newry Crown Court.<\/p>\n
The former MP is accused of rape and several counts of gross indecency and of indecent assault.<\/p>\n
Donaldson, 63, has pleaded not guilty to the 18 alleged offences.<\/p>\n
The charges span a time period between 1985 and 2008 involving two alleged victims.<\/p>\n
Court artist drawing of Sir Jeffrey Donaldson appearing at Newry Crown Court (Elizabeth Cook\/PA)<\/p>\n
Donaldson\u2019s wife Eleanor Donaldson, from Dublinhill Road, Dromore, Co Down, denies several charges of aiding and abetting her husband\u2019s alleged offending. She is facing a trial of the facts.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Donaldson, wearing a blue suit, stood in the dock with his hands joined as the charges against him and his wife were read to the jury of seven men and five women.<\/p>\n
Barrister Rosemary Walsh KC opened the prosecution case by summarising the evidence.<\/p>\n
She told the jury they would hear evidence from witnesses as well as police interviews carried out with the Donaldsons at the time of their arrest in 2024.<\/p>\n
Walsh said two complainants had come forward to police more than two years ago and reported \u201cdifficult and traumatic incidents they say happened when they were children\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said the evidence of the two complainants would in part be delivered during the trial by pre-recorded interviews. She said they would be cross-examined by barristers but would not come into the court.<\/p>\n
Walsh said that in March 2024 Complainant B told police that she had been sexually abused when she was a child and that she remembered two incidents \u201cvividly\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the first alleged incident, she told the police that Jeffrey Donaldson had put his hands down her underwear, pulled her legs apart and then sexually assaulted her.<\/p>\n
In the second incident she told police that Donaldson had lifted her top and started to touch her breasts.<\/p>\n
Walsh said Complainant B had said there were other incidents and that Donaldson had put his hands down her pants \u201ca lot\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"Jeffrey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779916214_533_prosecution-opens-against-jeffrey-donaldson-in-sexual-offences-trial.jpg\")
Jeffrey Donaldson arriving at Newry Crown Court on Wednesday (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n
The barrister told the jury that Complainant B had later been at a meeting with Donaldson at a Christian centre and he had \u201capologised to her for what had happened in the past\u201d.<\/p>\n
Walsh then turned to the evidence that would be presented during the trial by Complainant A.<\/p>\n
Complainant A also made a statement to police in March 2024.<\/p>\n
She alleged that Donaldson touched her on a number of occasions under her top when she was a child.<\/p>\n
She told police that touching her had become something he had \u201cdone quite often\u201d.<\/p>\n
She told police that Donaldson would make comments about her appearance, including the size of her breasts.<\/p>\n
She recalled one incident where she claimed that Donaldson had been \u201clooking at her private parts\u201d.<\/p>\n
The jury was told that the Donaldsons had been arrested on March 28th, 2024 and were subject to a number of police interviews.<\/p>\n
In Jeffrey Donaldson\u2019s interview, when Complainant B\u2019s account was put to him, he said it was \u201cunbelievable\u201d that he would have touched her in a sexual way.<\/p>\n
Regarding Complainant A, he denied that he ever rubbed her breast.<\/p>\n
Eleanor Donaldson is facing a trial of the facts, not a criminal trial, after Judge Paul Ramsey ruled her unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds.<\/p>\n
The trial of the facts will test the evidence in the case but cannot result in a criminal conviction.<\/p>\n
It is being heard by the same jury, with proceedings against both Donaldsons running simultaneously as part of one overall trial process presided over by Judge Ramsey.<\/p>\n
The trial is expected to last between three and four weeks.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Donaldson, a former long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, was arrested and charged at the end of March 2024.<\/p>\n
He resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.<\/p>\n
Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into devolved government at Stormont after a two-year boycott of the powersharing institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two women who accused Jeffrey Donaldson of sexually abusing them claim the former DUP leader subjected them to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-470165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470165","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=470165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}