Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of 18 sexual offences against two victims who were children at the time of the abuse more than 30 years ago.
The former Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader was remanded into immediate custody after a jury at Newry crown court on Monday convicted him of 18 offences including rape, indecent assault and gross indecency. The judge, Paul Ramsey, said a “lengthy” prison sentence was inevitable.
Standing in the dock with his hands clasped, Donaldson, 63, showed no visible emotion and stared straight ahead as he was found guilty of each charge.
The verdict completed a stunning fall for an establishment figure who had dominated unionism and played a key role at Westminster during post-Brexit negotiations over Northern Ireland’s position in the UK.
The jury found that Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, had aided and abetted her husband’s offending. The judge deemed the 60-year-old unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds so she faced a trial of the facts, which tests the evidence but does not result in a criminal conviction.
In a four-week trial , Donaldson pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and other counts of gross indecency and indecent assault spanning a period from 1985 to 2008.
Prosecutors had urged the jury of five women and seven men to recall the “pain and hurt still so visible” on the two victims, referred to as complainants A and B. “The sexual abuse they suffered has consequences – consequences that cannot be ignored and brushed under the carpet any longer,” said Rosemary Walsh KC.
Complainant B told the trial she still lived with the memory of Donaldson’s assault: “What happened that night will live with me for ever.”
The verdict will shred what was left of the reputation of the former Lagan Valley MP, a polished media performer and towering political figure in Northern Ireland who helped to broker the Windsor framework.
His arrest in March 2024 shocked Westminster and Stormont. Donaldson stood down as an MP and resigned from the DUP, which scrubbed his name and image from its website and appointed Gavin Robinson as the party’s new leader.
“Jeffrey Donaldson must now feel the full force of the law,” Robinson said in a statement. “He stands guilty of abusing and betraying the trust placed in him by many people over the years.” The abuse detailed during the trial was “filthy and vile”, Robinson said. “Abuse, preying on the innocent and taking advantage of the vulnerability of children in particular is evil.”
Political leaders and children’s rights groups paid tribute to the victims who made the accusations to police in 2024 and persisted with the case despite delays in the trial and denials from Donaldson, who accused the women of lying.
A phalanx of cameras greeted Donaldson each day as he arrived at the court in Newry, 40 miles (65km) south of Belfast. Flanked in the dock by court employees, he appeared composed and took notes during proceedings and for two days in the witness box proclaimed his innocence.
Complainant B said she was raped when she was of primary school age and was of secondary school age when Donaldson lifted up her top and fondled her breasts. The jury heard that Donaldson’s wife witnessed part of the latter incident and walked away.
Complainant A said she was of primary school age when Donaldson began to be “physical” with her and put his hands up her top. She recalled waking up in the night on several occasions with a sexual feeling and having nightmares about “men doing horrible things to children”.
He once kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth, and when she later complained he laughed it off as a joke, the court heard. Donaldson also used a light to look at her genitals, she said.
The trial heard that in the 1990s the victim told a pastor about the abuse, after which Donaldson met and apologised to her at a Christian centre in County Antrim. Prosecutors also told the jury of a letter Donaldson wrote to Complainant A in 2020 in which he expressed regret for causing “hurt, pain and distress” and asked forgiveness for his “sinful nature”.
Donaldson said those apologies referred to other matters, not abuse, which he said never happened and was made up by the complainants.
Walsh said both victims kept memories “locked away inside” until reaching “turning points” in adulthood that prompted the “huge, huge” decision to report the offences to police in 2024. Neither woman had complete recollection and some memories were “fragmentary” but they were telling the truth, Walsh said. “This is what happened and they have made a decision to call it out.”
The prosecutor said Eleanor Donaldson knew of the risk her husband posed but instead of intervening she “facilitated” the abuse. The trial heard Jeffrey Donaldson had had a brief affair with a woman in 2008 and his wife, suspecting another affair, had a listening device planted in his car in 2020.
Donaldson’s barrister, Kieran Vaughan KC, said there was no medical or forensic evidence and urged the jury not to be “swept along” on a tide of emotion: “When all is said and done, that is what it is about: their word against his word.”
He disputed the complainants’ accounts, saying some claims defied belief and were “farcical”. For the jury to convict, they must be sure, said Vaughan. “Nothing less will do. Suspicion is not good enough. You have to be sure.”
Until his arrest Donaldson had embodied unionist probity. Born into a Presbyterian family in the fishing village of Kilkeel, he married Eleanor in 1987 and served apprenticeships in the Ulster Unionist party before defecting to the DUP at the turn of the year in 2004. He was knighted for political services in 2016 and became DUP leader in 2021.
Leaders from across the political spectrum expressed revulsion at his crimes and called for his knighthood – awarded in 2016 for services to politics – to be stripped.
“No matter what your title, no matter what your status, no matter how much power you have in society, you are all equal under the law,” said Jon Burrows, the UUP leader. “Now we need to see Jeffrey Donaldson stripped of that title of sir. He deserves nothing of that nature.”
Burrows lauded the survivors as “heroes” for coming forward to report the crimes and seek justice. “I hope this sends a message to the vulnerable in our society that the law is there to protect them.”
Jim Allister, the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, also called for Donaldson to be stripped of the knighthood.
John Finucane, the Sinn Féin MP for north Belfast, said the complainants showed bravery and won accountability. “But it will not undo the horrific abuse that they suffered or the horrific experience I can only imagine they had to go through in giving evidence, as well.”
Claire Hanna, the Social Democratic and Labour party leader, said the victims were vindicated. “Despite the mountain they had to climb going up against someone with every privilege in the world, they took their courage and they won,” said Hanna.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said the former DUP leader had betrayed his position of trust in the community. “The victims in this case, now adults, have shown immense courage in coming forward and giving evidence after decades of living with the impact of Jeffrey Donaldson’s abuse.”
• In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood ( Napac ) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International