The judge remanded Jeffrey Donaldson in custody and said a “long prison sentence” was inevitable.
NEWRY, Northern Ireland (AFP) – A court on Monday found Jeffrey Donaldson, the former leader of Northern Ireland’s main pro-UK party, guilty of 18 landmark sex offences, including rape.
A jury took 10 hours to reach a verdict after Donaldson, 63, pleaded not guilty to all charges following four weeks of evidence at a court in Newry, south Belfast.
The trial centered on claims by two women who said he sexually abused them as children over a period spanning more than two decades.
Donaldson was found guilty of one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency with or on a child and 13 counts of indecent assault.
The judge remanded Donaldson in custody and said a “lengthy prison sentence” was imminent, with sentencing scheduled for September 25.
Donaldson led the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from December 2019 until his resignation in March 2024, when he was charged by the police.
A heavyweight in Northern Ireland unionist politics for decades, he was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.
The charges related to incidents between 1985 and 2008.
The prosecution argued that the appellants’ accounts, while describing events dating back many years, were reliable and consistent in their essential details.
He said the women had kept their experiences private for long periods before eventually deciding to report them and asked jurors to consider the evidence in the context of allegations of historical abuse.
Neither woman can be publicly identified due to strict anonymity laws for victims of sexual assault.
During the defense case, Donaldson took the witness stand and denied any allegations.
He told jurors no abuse had taken place and disputed key elements of the appellants’ evidence, claiming the allegations were false.
His defense attorney emphasized the lack of forensic material, medical findings or independent eyewitness evidence.
Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, was also found guilty of five counts of aiding and abetting her husband’s offending.
These allegations related to two complainants and took place between 1985 and 2006.
Eleanor, 60, faced a so-called “trial of the facts”, not a criminal trial, after a judge ruled her unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds.
Donaldson was first elected to the UK Parliament in London in 1997 and was the longest serving Minister of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
The allegations came just weeks after Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly was reinstated following a two-year boycott by the DUP over post-Brexit trading rules.
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From Agence France-Presse
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