![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/options-for-judge-after-eleanor-donaldson-trial-of-the-facts.jpg\")
Jeffrey Donaldson arriving at Newry Crown Court on Monday (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\nA number of options are available to a judge in place of a conventional sentence for Eleanor Donaldson, who was found by a jury this week to have aided and abetted her husband Jeffrey Donaldson\u2019s sex offending.<\/p>\n
The judge at Newry Crown Court could issue a number of treatment orders or else an absolute discharge.<\/p>\n
Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was found guilty on Monday of 18 sex offences against two women when they were children, including one count of rape.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey Donaldson arriving at Newry Crown Court on Monday (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\n
The offences occurred between 1985 and 2008.<\/p>\n
Eleanor Donaldson, 60, from Dublinhill Road, Dromore, Co Down, had faced a trial of the facts after being found medically unable to participate in the trial.<\/p>\n
The process tested the evidence but could not result in a criminal conviction.<\/p>\n
While she was not present in court, she was legally represented and her barrister Ian Turkington KC cross-examined the two victims and made legal submissions.<\/p>\n
She had faced a number of charges of aiding and abetting her husband\u2019s offending and the jury found that she \u201cdid the acts\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Jeffrey Donaldson was warned he is facing a \u201clengthy\u201d prison term when he is sentenced later in the year, his wife could instead face a treatment order.<\/p>\n
The judge Paul Ramsey could impose a medical order as set out by the relevant legislation.<\/p>\n
These are designed to protect the public in circumstances where it is required.<\/p>\n
This could include being committed to hospital, being subject to a guardianship order or subject to a supervision and treatment order.<\/p>\n
If none of those are required, the defendant would be absolutely discharged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of options are available to a judge in place of a conventional sentence for Eleanor Donaldson,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-515443","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\/515443","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=515443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}