four-week trial<\/a>, Donaldson, 63, pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and other counts of gross indecency and indecent assault spanning a period from 1985 to 2008.<\/p>\nProsecutors had urged the jury of five women and seven men to recall the \u201cpain and hurt still so visible\u201d on the two victims, referred to as complainants A and B. \u201cThe sexual abuse they suffered has consequences \u2013 consequences that cannot be ignored and brushed under the carpet any longer,\u201d said Rosemary Walsh KC.<\/p>\n
Complainant B told the trial she still lived with the memory of Donaldson\u2019s assault: \u201cWhat happened that night will live with me for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The verdict will shred what was left of the reputation of the former Lagan Valley MP, a polished media performer and towering political figure in Northern Ireland who helped to broker the Windsor framework.<\/p>\n
His arrest in March 2024 shocked Westminster and Stormont. Donaldson stood down as an MP and resigned from the DUP, which scrubbed his name and image from its website and appointed Gavin Robinson as the party\u2019s new leader.<\/p>\n
A phalanx of cameras greeted Donaldson each day as he arrived at the court in Newry, 40 miles (65km) south of Belfast. Flanked in the dock by court employees, he appeared composed and took notes during proceedings and for two days in the witness box proclaimed his innocence.<\/p>\n
Complainant B said she was raped when she was of primary school age and was of secondary school age when Donaldson lifted up her top and fondled her breasts. The jury heard that Donaldson\u2019s wife witnessed part of the latter incident and walked away.<\/p>\n
Complainant A said she was of primary school age when Donaldson began to be \u201cphysical\u201d with her and put his hands up her top. She recalled waking up in the night on several occasions with a sexual feeling and having nightmares about \u201cmen doing horrible things to children\u201d.<\/p>\n
Once he kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth, and when she later complained, he laughed it off as a joke, the court heard. Donaldson also used a light to look at her genitals, she said.<\/p>\n
The trial heard that in the 1990s the victim told a pastor about the abuse, after which Donaldson met and apologised to her at a Christian centre in County Antrim. Prosecutors also told the jury of a letter Donaldson wrote to Complainant A in 2020 in which he expressed regret for causing \u201churt, pain and distress\u201d and asked forgiveness for his \u201csinful nature\u201d.<\/p>\n
Donaldson said those apologies referenced other matters, not abuse, which he said never happened and was made up by the complainants.<\/p>\n
Walsh said both victims kept memories \u201clocked away inside\u201d until reaching \u201cturning points\u201d in adulthood that prompted the \u201chuge, huge\u201d decision to report the offences to police in 2024. Neither woman had complete recollection and some memories were \u201cfragmentary\u201d but they were telling the truth, Walsh said. \u201cThis is what happened and they have made a decision to call it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prosecutor said Eleanor Donaldson knew of the risk her husband posed but instead of intervening she \u201cfacilitated\u201d the abuse. The trial heard Jeffrey Donaldson had had a brief affair with a woman in 2008 and his wife, suspecting another affair, had a listening device planted in his car in 2020.<\/p>\n
Donaldson\u2019s barrister, Kieran Vaughan KC, said there was no medical or forensic evidence and urged the jury not to be \u201cswept along\u201d on a tide of emotion: \u201cWhen all is said and done that is what it is about, their word against his word.\u201d<\/p>\n
He disputed the complainants\u2019 accounts, saying some claims defied belief and were \u201cfarcical\u201d. For the jury to convict, they \u201cmust be sure\u201d, said Vaughan. \u201cNothing less will do. Suspicion is not good enough. You have to be sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until his arrest Donaldson had embodied unionist probity. Born into a Presbyterian family in the fishing village of Kilkeel, he 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":"Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of sexual offences against two victims who were children at the time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-512702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512702","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=512702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}