{"id":611841,"date":"2026-05-30T09:58:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611841\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T09:58:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:58:17","slug":"jeffrey-donaldsons-letter-to-alleged-victim-had-nothing-to-do-with-abuse-claims-trial-hears-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611841\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Donaldson\u2019s letter to alleged victim had \u2018nothing to do\u2019 with abuse claims, trial hears | UK news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeffrey Donaldson told a woman who has accused him of sexual assault that he regretted inflicting \u201churt, pain and distress\u201d, but his comments were not related to the allegations, a court has heard.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for the former MP and Democratic Unionist party leader told Newry crown court on Friday that Donaldson\u2019s letter to the alleged victim had \u201cnothing to do\u201d with her accusations of sexual abuse and referred to other behaviour.<\/p>\n

On the fourth day of the trial, Kieran Vaughan KC put it to the complainant, known as Witness A, that she was mistaken in linking the letter to his alleged historical sex offences.<\/p>\n

She said the letter, written in 2020, did not mention sexual abuse but had connotations of guilt and shame and requested forgiveness. \u201cI believe that letter is a letter of apology for what he did to me over the years. He is a very clever man, he would never write in writing what he had done but he could heavily suggest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donaldson, 63, faces 18 charges, including one count of rape, which span from 1985 to 2008 and involve two alleged victims. His wife, Eleanor, 60, is charged with aiding and abetting rape and indecent assault. Both deny all the charges.<\/p>\n

The trial previously heard<\/a> that Donaldson described himself in the letter as a \u201csinner\u201d who had not addressed his \u201csinful nature for far too many years\u201d and would \u201cregret this to my dying day\u201d.<\/p>\n

Vaughan mentioned Witness A\u2019s allegation that Donaldson touched her breasts on several occasions when she was of primary school age and that it was mostly \u201cskin on skin\u201d, and contrasted it with her comment to police about \u201ctouching over clothing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the face of it that is inconsistent with what you told the jury yesterday, about touching under clothes,\u201d said Vaughan. Witness A replied: \u201cThe facts are the facts, I am sticking to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaughan challenged her account, made in a police interview, that Donaldson had \u201cperched\u201d over her and used a light to look at her \u201cprivate parts\u201d. \u201cI suggest that is not true,\u201d he said. \u201cYou were confused and you were not sure of what you had seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witness A replied: \u201cTo this day I am still confused. I am honest about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaughan asked why she had waited until March 2024 to make a formal complaint about alleged sexual abuse. \u201cI knew this would be an extremely public affair, involving media. It was a huge, huge decision,\u201d she said. \u201cI had doubt about doing this, I very nearly changed my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury of five women and seven men also heard that in 2020 Eleanor Donaldson suspected her husband was having an affair with a constituent and had a listening device planted in his car.<\/p>\n

Donaldson sat in the dock and took notes during the hearing.<\/p>\n

Eleanor Donaldson, who has been judged unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds, was not present. She is facing a trial of the facts, which tests the evidence but cannot result in a criminal conviction. Her legal team will question Witness A next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Donaldson told a woman who has accused him of sexual assault that he regretted inflicting \u201churt, pain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-611841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}