Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has taken the witness stand at his trial and told the jury that a letter he wrote to one of the alleged victims was ‘absolutely not’ a reference to sexual abuse, as he gave Jeffrey Donaldson trial evidence for the first time at Newry Crown Court on Wednesday.
The former DUP leader, aged 63, was called to give evidence by his defence barrister Kieran Vaughan KC. When asked whether he accepted any of the abuse allegations made by two women, Sir Jeffrey replied: ‘No.’
Sir Jeffrey denies 18 sex abuse charges allegedly committed between 1985 and 2008. The trial is now in its third week at the Courts and Tribunals Service for Northern Ireland.
The 2020 letter at the centre of Jeffrey Donaldson trial evidence
The court previously heard that in 2020, Sir Jeffrey wrote to one of the alleged victims, referred to as Complainant A, expressing ‘regret’ for the ‘hurt, pain and distress’ he had caused her. Complainant A told the court she believed the letter was an attempt to ‘apologise’ for the alleged abuse.
Vaughan asked Sir Jeffrey to read extracts from the letter to the jury and then asked whether the wording referred to the alleged sexual abuse. Sir Jeffrey replied: ‘Absolutely not. I would never have done anything of that nature. This was not the reason why this letter was written.’
He also dismissed an allegation by Complainant A that he had kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth. ‘Why would I just kiss a child using my tongue? That is just ridiculous… that just did not ever happen,’ he said. Sir Jeffrey denies acts of gross indecency and indecent assault against Complainant A when she was a child, covering the period 1999 to 2008.
Rape allegation and disputed 1990s meeting
Vaughan turned to the rape allegation made by the second alleged victim, Complainant B, to which Sir Jeffrey replied: ‘It just didn’t happen. I am absolutely crystal clear about that. It is just simply not true.’
He described as ‘unbelievable’ the allegation that he had ‘played’ with Complainant B’s breasts as a child and that his wife, Lady Eleanor Donaldson, had witnessed the incident and walked away. ‘The idea I was standing there with a child with her clothes pulled up and feeling her chest and my wife walked in and saw this and just walked out again is unbelievable,’ he told the court. ‘She would have been very angry and intervened immediately because that is the nature of my wife… there is no situation where that happened.’
The court previously heard of a meeting at a Christian Centre in Armoy in the 1990s at which Complainant B claimed Sir Jeffrey had apologised to her. Sir Jeffrey said the meeting was short and also attended by Davey and Linda Hoy, who ran the centre. He said he had ’embraced’ Complainant B and told her he was sorry if she had ever felt ‘uncomfortable or unhappy’ about him. He described it as ‘a very positive experience’ for him.
Vaughan asked whether any allegation of sexual abuse was raised at that meeting. ‘No, not ever,’ Sir Jeffrey replied. ‘The word allegation wasn’t even mentioned at that meeting. There would have been no reason for it to be put to me.’
Lady Donaldson and the wider charges
Both alleged victims reported their allegations to the Police Service of Northern Ireland in March 2024. Other alleged offences against Complainant B, including the rape charge, date back to 1985.
Lady Eleanor Donaldson denies five charges of aiding and abetting Sir Jeffrey’s alleged offending. She faces a trial of the facts after being previously deemed unfit to face a conventional trial on mental health grounds, and is not participating in current proceedings.
Coverage of the trial has been reported throughout by BBC News Northern Ireland. The trial continues.
