The trial of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has begun hearing evidence from one of two women who claim they were sexually abused by him when they were children.<\/p>\n
He has pleaded not guilty to 18 sexual offences charges, including one of rape.<\/p>\n
His wife, Eleanor Donaldson, has pleaded not guilty to five related offences of aiding and abetting her husband’s alleged offending.<\/p>\n
The jury of seven men and five women this morning began hearing the evidence of one of the two complainants.<\/p>\n
Complainant A cannot be named for legal reasons.<\/p>\n
A prosecution lawyer yesterday told the court the two complainants had “stepped forward” two and a half years ago, and told police about “difficult and traumatic incidents they say happened to them when they were children.”<\/p>\n
Mr Donaldson has denied eight offences relating to Complainant A, four of indecent assault and four of gross indecency, all of which are alleged to have occurred between 1999 and 2008.<\/p>\n
The jury watched a recorded police interview with Complainant A conducted by a PSNI detective sergeant on 8 March 2024.<\/p>\n
It lasted for just under an hour.<\/p>\n
Complainant A began by telling the police officer that she had been sexually abused by Jeffrey Donaldson “from quite a young age”, but that the “dates are quite patchy and foggy”.<\/p>\n
She said Mr Donaldson would have been quite physical with her on a number of occasions and that while at primary school she started to have nightmares about men “doing horrible things to children.”<\/p>\n
The complainant said Mr Donaldson would have put his hand underneath her top “quite a lot” and made comments about her physical appearance, including the size of her breasts.<\/p>\n
She said she remembered an incident when she was a teenager when Mr Donaldson had used a bright light, possibly a torch, to look at her private parts.<\/p>\n
She said the experience made her feel scared.<\/p>\n
Complainant A also said there were a few occasions when he kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth.<\/p>\n
She said this was “all very much laughed off, that it was just a joke.”<\/p>\n
She told the officer that when she went to university, she became “very angry” and realised that what had been happening was wrong and that Mr Donaldson\u2019s interest in her “was not normal.”<\/p>\n
“She later confided in her husband and finally in March 2024 she made a formal complaint to police.”<\/p>\n
The complainant said she “felt very dirty for a long time” and had contacted police because she could not “live with this anymore”.<\/p>\n
The court has been told that Mr Donaldson has denied all the allegations during his police interviews.<\/p>\n
After a short break, the court heard a second police interview conducted by the same PSNI detective sergeant later the same day. It lasted around 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
The complainant told the officer about an occasion where Mr Donaldson had one hand up her top and under her bra and was rubbing her breasts.<\/p>\n
She said that kind of behaviour “became a very casual thing” that happened quite often. She said he would start rubbing her with his hand outside her clothing and then put his hand underneath.<\/p>\n
In addition to confiding in her husband, she said she had also spoken to a counsellor from Nexus, a charity that provides support to victims of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
Complainant A said she had challenged Mr Donaldson in the presence of another person, asking him “to confirm that this happened to me.”<\/p>\n
She said he did not respond verbally, but nodded and looked at the floor. “He couldn’t look at me,” she added.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trial of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has begun hearing evidence from one of two women who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-471289","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\/471289","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=471289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}