{"id":656011,"date":"2026-10-16T00:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656011\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T00:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:18:14","slug":"northern-ireland-ex-dup-leader-donaldson-sentenced-to-15-years-for-child-sex-crimes-sexual-assault-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/656011\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland ex-DUP leader Donaldson sentenced to 15 years for child sex crimes | Sexual Assault News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge says Jeffrey Donaldson never apologised to victims as politician seeks to appeal his convictions.<\/p>\n

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Published On 15 Oct 202615 Oct 2026<\/p>\n

The former leader of Northern Ireland\u2019s largest unionist party has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for child \u2060\u2060sex offences.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Donaldson, who led the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), stared straight ahead as Judge Paul Ramsey handed down the 63-year-old\u2019s sentence on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Ramsey described the case as \u201cdisturbing and disquieting\u201d, \u200c\u200cassessing Donaldson as having a medium chance of reoffending. He described the politician\u2019s fall as \u201ca catastrophic descent into disgrace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Donaldson has been in prison awaiting sentence since June after he was convicted of one count of rape, 13 counts of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency against two girls between \u2060\u20601985 and 2008.<\/p>\n

He denied all the charges and is seeking to appeal against his convictions.<\/p>\n

The case is one of the highest-profile cases in the British-run region in recent times.<\/p>\n

Donaldson was one of Northern Ireland\u2019s best-known politicians and its longest-serving lawmaker in the British Parliament when he was arrested and charged in March 2024.<\/p>\n

He immediately resigned<\/a> as the leader of the DUP after he was charged with what he called \u201callegations of an historic nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Worst moment\u2019 of victim\u2019s life<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Rosemary Walsh told a pre-sentencing hearing last month that one of the victims described the abuse as \u201cthe worst moment of her life\u201d.<\/p>\n

The other victim said her childhood had been stolen and that she had carried around feelings of \u201cshame\u201d ever since. The victims, neither of whom can be identified for legal reasons, gave evidence during \u2060\u2060the trial.<\/p>\n

Judge Ramsey said Donaldson had doubled down on his denials and not offered one word of an apology or expressed shame.<\/p>\n

Donaldson will likely spend seven-and-a-half years in prison as he qualifies for an automatic remission of his sentence, the Lady Chief Justice\u2019s Office of \u2060\u2060Northern Ireland said. This is because the offences were committed before a change in the law allowing a judge to choose what portion of a sentence is spent in custody.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson signed paperwork with Britain\u2019s then Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, and Chief Whip, Gavin Williamson at 10 Downing Street on June 26, 2017. Donaldson rose through ranks to become DUP leader [File: Daniel Leal-Olivas\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

In 2021, Donaldson became leader of the DUP, the party founded by Protestant cleric Ian Paisley at the height of three decades of sectarian bloodshed, which ended after a 1998 peace deal.<\/p>\n

Donaldson was central to the negotiation of a crucial post-Brexit trade deal with the United Kingdom government two months before his arrest.<\/p>\n

It enabled the end of the DUP\u2019s two-year boycott<\/a> of the devolved power-sharing assembly at Stormont and had also been expected to lead his party into the next UK general election.<\/p>\n

Donaldson was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth for his political services in 2016.<\/p>\n

He asked for his knighthood to be renounced two days after his conviction.<\/p>\n

The jury also found that Donaldson\u2019s wife, Eleanor, \u200c\u200caided and \u200c\u200cabetted her husband. She has also denied the charges.<\/p>\n

The court ruled her unfit to stand trial last month due to mental health issues, meaning she could not face criminal conviction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judge says Jeffrey Donaldson never apologised to victims as politician seeks to appeal his convictions. Published On 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[230727,54,1115,1813,61,60,43,8519,51180,303],"class_list":["post-656011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-child-rights","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-europe","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-police","tag-sexual-assault","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656011","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=656011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}