Jeffrey Donaldson guilty of rape and child sex crimes, faces lengthy sentence

Jeffrey Donaldson's political collapse ended in a rape conviction and 17 other sex offence verdicts that will send the former DUP leader to prison and place him on the sex offenders register. A jury at Newry Crown Court took just over ten hours to convict him on 22 June 2026 of one count of rape, 13 counts of indecent assault and four counts of gross indecency. Judge Paul Ramsey said a "lengthy sentence of imprisonment" was inevitable.

The charges covered allegations said to have taken place between 1985 and 2008, and involved two women who said they were abused when they were children. Donaldson was remanded in custody for sentencing on 25 September 2026, with a review hearing earlier that month.

The court also dealt with the case of Eleanor Donaldson, who was found in a separate trial of the facts to have committed the acts she was accused of. She had faced five charges of aiding and abetting Jeffrey Donaldson's alleged offending, but did not take part in the trial because of mental health concerns.

The verdict carries force well beyond one courtroom in Newry, County Down. Donaldson was not only the MP for Lagan Valley from 1997, he led the Democratic Unionist Party from June 2021 until March 2024 and was central to the party's return to power-sharing at Stormont after a two-year boycott. His conviction leaves the DUP confronting a crisis that cuts into the authority of a party long associated with discipline, deference and moral certainty.

Donaldson's arrest on 28 March 2024 triggered his resignation as DUP leader and his suspension from the party. Throughout the trial, he denied the rape allegation and the other charges, and he rejected the suggestion in police interviews that a handwritten letter he wrote in 2020, expressing regret for "all the hurt, pain and stress" he had caused, was an apology for sexual abuse.

Reaction from the victim support sector was immediate. NSPCC Northern Ireland said Donaldson had held a "position of trust" that he "grossly betrayed," while praising the courage of the women who came forward after decades living with the impact of the abuse. For Northern Ireland's unionist politics, the verdict does not only mark the fall of a former leader. It leaves a deeper question hanging over the institutions and loyalties that kept him at the center of power for years.