Jeffrey Donaldson denies 18 charges in child sex abuse trial

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson denied 18 charges, including one count of rape, as a jury at Newry Crown Court in County Down began hearing allegations that span 23 years and involve two complainants. The former Democratic Unionist Party leader, who was 63 at the start of the trial, has pleaded not guilty to all counts in a case expected to last about four weeks.

Prosecutors told jurors that both women say Donaldson sexually abused them when they were children. One complainant told police, “I, from quite a young age, was, I think, sexually abused by Jeffrey Donaldson.” The court also heard allegations of touching under clothing, comments about appearance and a later meeting at a Christian-centre gathering where Donaldson allegedly apologised “for what had happened in the past.”

Donaldson has denied the accusations. In police interview, the court heard him say it was “unbelievable” that he would have touched one complainant in a sexual way. The case, which opened at 10.30am, is being tried before Judge Paul Ramsey and has placed decades-old allegations into open court, where the evidential focus now turns on accounts separated by many years, police interviews and the context in which the women say the abuse occurred.

The proceedings also draw in Lady Eleanor Donaldson, who has been ruled unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds and is facing a trial of the facts on aiding-and-abetting allegations, a process that cannot lead to a criminal conviction. Donaldson and his wife were arrested on 28 March 2024 after police received complaints months earlier, and the case quickly became a political bombshell.

Donaldson resigned as DUP leader and stepped down as an MP after the arrest. He had been Northern Ireland’s longest-serving sitting MP and had represented Lagan Valley since 1997, leaving one of the most enduring parliamentary careers in Northern Ireland politics under a cloud of serious criminal allegations now being tested before a jury in Newry.