Prosecution opens against Jeffrey Donaldson in sexual offences trial
Jeffrey Donaldson leaving Newry Crown Court, where he and his wife Eleanor are accused of historical sexual offences. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
Two women who accused Jeffrey Donaldson of sexually abusing them claim the former DUP leader subjected them to “difficult and traumatic incidents” when they were children, his trial has heard.
The prosecution case against Mr Donaldson has been set out for the jury at Newry Crown Court.
The former MP is accused of rape and several counts of gross indecency and of indecent assault.
Mr Donaldson, aged 63, has pleaded not guilty to the 18 alleged offences.
The charges span a time period between 1985 and 2008 involving two alleged victims.
Mr Donaldson’s wife Eleanor, from Dublinhill Rd, Dromore, Co Down, denies several charges of aiding and abetting her husband’s alleged offending. She is facing a trial of the facts.
Mr Donaldson, wearing a blue suit, stood in the dock with his hands joined as the charges against him and his wife were read to the jury of seven men and five women.
Rosemary Walsh opened the prosecution case by summarising the evidence.
She told the jury they would hear evidence from witnesses as well as police interviews carried out with the Donaldsons at the time of their arrest in 2024.
Ms Walsh said two complainants had come forward to police more than two years ago and reported “difficult and traumatic incidents they say happened when they were children”.
She said the evidence of the two complainants would in part be delivered during the trial by pre-recorded interviews. She said they would be cross-examined by barristers but would not come into the court.
Ms Walsh said that in March 2024 Complainant B told police that she had been sexually abused when she was a child and that she remembered two incidents “vividly”.
In the first alleged incident, she told the police that Mr Donaldson had put his hands down her underwear, pulled her legs apart and then sexually assaulted her.
In the second incident she told police that Mr Donaldson had lifted her top and started to touch her breasts.
Ms Walsh said Complainant B had said there were other incidents and that Mr Donaldson had put his hands down her pants “a lot”.
The barrister told the jury that Complainant B had later been at a meeting with Mr Donaldson at a Christian centre and he had “apologised to her for what had happened in the past”.
Ms Walsh then turned to the evidence that would be presented during the trial by Complainant A.
Complainant A also made a statement to police in March 2024.
She alleged that Mr Donaldson touched her on a number of occasions under her top when she was a child.
She told police that touching her had become something he had “done quite often”.
She told police that Mr Donaldson would make comments about her appearance, including the size of her breasts.
She recalled one incident where she claimed that Mr Donaldson had been “looking at her private parts”.
The jury was told that the Donaldsons had been arrested on March 28, 2024, and were subject to a number of police interviews.
In Mr Donaldson’s interview, when Complainant B’s account was put to him, he said it was “unbelievable” that he would have touched her in a sexual way.
Regarding Complainant A, he denied that he ever rubbed her breast.
Eleanor Donaldson is facing a trial of the facts, not a criminal trial, after Judge Paul Ramsey ruled her unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds.
The trial of the facts will test the evidence in the case but cannot result in a criminal conviction.
It is being heard by the same jury, with proceedings against both Donaldsons running simultaneously as part of one overall trial process presided over by Judge Ramsey.
The trial is expected to last between three and four weeks.
Mr Donaldson, a former long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, was arrested and charged at the end of March 2024.
He resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.
Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into devolved government at Stormont after a two-year boycott of the powersharing institutions.
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