Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has denied attending a meeting with one of his two sex abuse accusers in order to “nip in the bud” allegations made against him.<\/p>\n
The former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, 63, has been giving evidence for a second day at his trial at Newry Crown Court.<\/p>\n
He denies a total of 18 offences, including rape, allegedly committed between 1985 and 2008.<\/p>\n
The trial started three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
There are two alleged victims, referred to as Complainants A and B, who both claim they were abused by him when they were children.<\/p>\n
Prosecution lawyer Rosemary Walsh KC asked Sir Jeffrey about a meeting he had with Complainant B at the Christian Family Centre in Armoy in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n
It had been arranged by one of the centre’s founders, Davey Hoy, after she told a pastor about the alleged abuse.<\/p>\n
Walsh suggested to Sir Jeffrey that he had gone because it was “something you needed to nip in the bud”.<\/p>\n
He replied: “That’s not true.<\/p>\n
“He didn’t say ‘you need to get up to Armoy as there are serious issues to deal with’. I was not worried about going. I went willingly.”<\/p>\n
He repeatedly denied knowing the meeting was about her allegations.<\/p>\n
In evidence, Complainant B stated he had apologised to her \u2013 but Sir Jeffrey has claimed he was saying sorry if he had ever made her feel “uncomfortable” about him.<\/p>\n
He said no allegations were raised at the meeting.<\/p>\n
“If the suggestion is that what I was apologising for is that someone had said there were allegations, that is not the case,” he told the court.<\/p>\n
“She had become a Christian and wanted to move forward… I responded to that.”<\/p>\n
He said they had embraced at the end of what had been a short meeting, also attended by Hoy and his wife Linda.<\/p>\n
The court previously heard evidence from the Hoys.<\/p>\n
Linda Hoy said Complainant B cried at the meeting when she said she forgave Sir Jeffrey.<\/p>\n
Walsh asked Sir Jeffrey why, if the meeting was a “positive experience” as he had previously told the court, Complainant B had cried.<\/p>\n
“I remember talking with her, I don’t remember the tears, I remember we embraced at the end of the meeting\u2026 maybe when I left there were tears, I don’t know,” he said.<\/p>\n
Walsh then suggested that Sir Jeffrey “took control” of the meeting.<\/p>\n
“You went in there and immediately said that you knew what all this was about and that you were truly sorry,” Walsh said.<\/p>\n
Sir Jeffrey denied this.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t take control of that meeting, I did not march into that meeting and say ‘OK I know what this is about’,” he said.<\/p>\n
Walsh also asked the defendant about evidence, previously heard in court, that Complainant B had disclosed allegations to the Hoys’ daughter, Claire Selfridge, when the two women were in their teens.<\/p>\n
Walsh asked Sir Jeffrey if Complainant B had lied to Selfridge.<\/p>\n
He replied that he was “not aware of the meeting” and “was not aware of what happened”.<\/p>\n
She went on to ask him if Complainant B had also lied to Christian pastor Stephen Matthews.<\/p>\n
The court previously heard Complainant B had told him she had been sexually abused.<\/p>\n
“Yes, the allegations being made by her, I have said repeatedly are untrue,” Sir Jeffrey responded.<\/p>\n
Later in his evidence, he said he did not know why the two alleged victims had gone to the police at the same time.<\/p>\n
He repeated that their allegations are “untrue”.<\/p>\n
Walsh asked him if the reason he had been able to comment on the size of Complainant A’s breasts was because he had been touching them.<\/p>\n
“Absolutely not,” he replied.<\/p>\n
Sir Jeffrey denies acts of gross indecency and indecent assault against Complainant A when she was a child, between 1999 and 2008.<\/p>\n
He also denies other alleged offences dating back to 1985, including a charge of rape, against Complainant B.<\/p>\n
His wife, Lady Eleanor Donaldson denies five charges of aiding and abetting his alleged offending.<\/p>\n
Lady Donaldson faces a trial of the facts after she was previously deemed unfit to face a conventional trial on mental health grounds, and is therefore not participating in proceedings.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has denied attending a meeting with one of his two sex abuse accusers in order…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-634902","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\/634902","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=634902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}