{"id":696895,"date":"2026-07-17T16:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696895\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T16:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:12:09","slug":"former-dup-leader-jeffrey-donaldson-to-appeal-sex-offence-convictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696895\/","title":{"rendered":"Former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson to appeal sex offence convictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is to appeal against his sex offence convictions, it has been confirmed.<\/p>\n

His legal team lodged the paperwork with the Court of Appeal in Belfast on Friday.<\/p>\n

The document sets out in detail the grounds on which he will attempt to have all 18 guilty verdicts set aside.<\/p>\n

Donaldson is in Maghaberry Prison waiting to be sentenced after he was convicted of 18 counts of sex abuse,<\/a> including one count of rape, committed against two women when they were children.<\/p>\n

The move was announced in a short statement from Donaldson’s solicitor, John McBurney.<\/p>\n

It stated: “I can confirm having lodged this afternoon, on behalf of Jeffrey Donaldson, appeal papers with the relevant office for the Court of Appeal.”<\/p>\n

It was known Donaldson was considering this step.<\/p>\n

The grounds potentially include some of the final remarks judge Paul Ramsey’s made to the jury at Newry Crown Court.<\/a><\/p>\n

They could also address an unsuccessful attempt by Donaldson’s lawyers to have his trial separated from the trial of the facts of his wife, Eleanor Donaldson.<\/p>\n

Had that happened, her police interview would not have been played at his trial.<\/p>\n

His attempt to have his convictions overturned is unlikely to play out before he is sentenced.<\/p>\n

The process will involve a hearing at which leave to appeal would either be granted or denied – it is speculated this could happen sometime in September.<\/p>\n

Should leave be granted, a full hearing would then follow at a later stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson is to appeal against his sex offence convictions, it has been confirmed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-696895","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\/696895","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=696895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}