{"id":512662,"date":"2026-06-22T13:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512662\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T13:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T13:52:09","slug":"former-dup-leader-jeffrey-donaldson-found-guilty-of-all-18-child-sex-abuse-charges-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512662\/","title":{"rendered":"Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson found guilty of all 18 child sex abuse charges \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former DUP<\/a> leader Jeffrey Donaldson<\/a> has been found guilty of all 18 child sex abuse charges against him, including raping a woman while she was a primary school child.<\/p>\n

The jury has delivered its unanimous verdict on the charges of child sexual abuse relating to two women following a four-week trial at Newry Crown Court.<\/p>\n

Donaldson (63), with an address in Dromore, Co Down, was found guilty of 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.<\/p>\n

His wife Eleanor (60), of the same address, was charged with four counts of aiding and abetting and one count of cruelty to children. She was found guilty on all charges by unanimous verdict. <\/p>\n

She did not face a criminal trial as she was ruled medically unfit, and instead the jury was tasked with deciding if she committed the acts alleged on the basis of the facts before the court.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Donaldson was remanded in custody pending sentencing which is expected in September. The judge told him to expect a lengthy prison sentence. <\/p>\n

He has also been placed on the sex offenders register.<\/p>\n

Born into a Presbyterian family in the fishing village of Kilkeel, Jeffrey Donaldson married Eleanor in 1987 and served apprenticeships in the Ulster Unionist party before defecting to the DUP in 2003. He was knighted for political services in 2016 and became DUP leader in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of all 18 child sex abuse charges against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512663,"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-512662","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\/512662","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=512662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}