By Amanda Ferguson
June 22 (Reuters) – The former leader of Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party, Jeffrey Donaldson, was found guilty on Monday of historic child sex offences, including rape, against two women when they were children in one of the highest-profile cases to be heard in the British-run region in recent times.
A jury at Newry Crown Court found Donaldson guilty of one count of rape, 13 counts of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency against two complainants at dates between 1985 and 2008. He denied all charges.
Judge Paul Ramsey said Donaldson would receive a lengthy prison sentence at a later date. A review hearing was set for mid-September.
WIFE AIDED AND ABETTED
Donaldson, 63, was one of Northern Ireland’s best-known politicians when he was arrested and charged in March 2024. He immediately stepped down as head of the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by Protestant cleric Ian Paisley at the height of three decades of sectarian bloodshed, which ended after a 1998 peace deal.
He was Northern Ireland’s longest-serving lawmaker in the British parliament, having been first elected in 1997, and had brokered a deal with the British government over post-Brexit trade two months prior to his arrest that allowed the DUP to end a boycott of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.
He was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth for his political services in 2016.
The jury found that Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, aided and abetted her husband. She has also denied the charges.
The court ruled her unfit to stand trial last month, due to mental health issues, meaning she could not face criminal conviction.
She instead faced a concurrent trial of the facts, where the jury was asked to decide whether or not she committed the offences, rather than whether she was guilty or not guilty.
APOLOGY LETTER
Donaldson, wearing a navy suit and pink tie, sat motionless as the charges were read out.
During four weeks of evidence the court heard testimony from both victims, neither of whom can be identified for legal reasons.
A letter which Donaldson wrote to one of the complainants, in which he expressed regret for unspecified hurt, pain and distress he had caused, was read out in court.
Donaldson said during two days of testimony that this was not an apology for the offences.
His side had argued that there was no forensic, medical or witness evidence of the events and that the case “came down to one word or two words from two complainants against Donaldson.”
Prosecution lawyer Rosemary Walsh urged the jury to apply common sense to events that took place up to 41 years ago where recollections were neither full nor clear.
The two complainants had suppressed and locked away their feelings for years and had no reason to lie having finally decided to “put their heads above the parapet,” Walsh said.
(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson; Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Sharon Singleton, William Maclean)
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