Convicted paedophile Jeffrey Donaldson shamelessly gave teenagers sex education lessons at his church ‘Sunday School’ in the years after he raped one of his child victims. 

The disgraced former DUP leader was once a senior figure involved in Kilkeel Presbyterian Church. In the early 1990s he was offering guidance to Youth Fellowship teens – including advising them to place a Bible between them in a car to resist carnal temptation.

On Monday, Donaldson was convicted of 18 counts of sex abuse, including one count of rape, which he committed against two women when they were children.

He was found guilty of eight offences against Complainant A, the younger of the two women, which occurred between 1999 and 2008.

The 10 remaining offences, including the one count of rape, related to Complainant B and were committed between 1985 and 1991.

Now it has emerged that from 1990 to 1991, Donaldson was hiding in plain sight by portraying himself as an upstanding member of society and a devout church figure at Kilkeel Presbyterian Church, giving teens advice on sex and how to respect God and Christian values.

One local man, who said Donaldson, 63, was present when he was baptised as a teenager and was a member of the group of young people the former British MP proffered advice to, said he was disgusted to learn of the shamed politician’s secret sick crimes.

He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I was someone who was a member of his local church and my relationship to him would have been... he would have been my Youth Fellowship leader for several years, where every Sunday night we went.

‘I suppose it’s like a grown-up Sunday School teacher, if that’s the right way of putting it. The Youth Fellowship is a thing wherein teenagers, maybe third year onwards in age, after an evening church service from roughly 8pm to 9pm, the slightly older teenagers would go.

‘It was kind of a Bible study group after the evening service and he would have been the main leader in that,’ he said.

‘He would generally have taken a very active role each week in the Youth Fellowship, where you talked about Christian-type things and it was guidance and all the rest of it, looking at passages of Scripture.

‘Jeffrey gave a sex education talk – I would have been about 17 or 18 so it was about 1990 to 1991, roughly that time period.

‘So long after he started the very un-Christian behaviour that he got sentenced for and he did then, he did set aside an evening to basically talk about sex and the Christian faith.

‘And, more specifically, targeting how Christians should approach relationships with each other, so that was theme of the evening. It was, in essence, a sex education talk for Christians who weren’t married.’

The man – who wishes to remain anonymous to protect family members still living in Kilkeel who are members of the church – said Donaldson also advised the youngsters they had to go out with a fellow Christian.

He continued: ‘If you were a Christian, you should only really marry within the faith and go out with people within the faith and he was talking about how generally Christians should date in the company of others.

‘That was the first thing, try not to be alone to avoid temptation. Maybe go out in double dates, your dates would be going to church, going to Youth Fellowship, but first of all try to make sure you were dating in a group of people so that the wicked sin of sexual temptation would be lessened,’ he said.

‘If you were going about, maybe, say, going for a drive or doing something, you should keep a copy of the Bible basically where the handbrake is. He said that if any point you start feeling urges above and beyond what you considered respectable – God knows in light of what we now know what Jeffrey thought was respectable – basically if passions were being stirred one or other of you should read from the Bible and just do a wee Bible study between you.

‘Maybe read the Good Book, read what the Lord says, draw your mind out of temptation and basically don’t give in to sin.

‘So it was all very serious and talking about this kind of thing and very much about sexual propriety and the importance as part of the Christian faith of not having sex outside of marriage, the sanctity of marriage, true love waits, all this kind of stuff you sort of imagine happens in America,’ he said.

‘But yeah, he spent one of the Youth Fellowships very much giving us that guidance on sexual propriety whilst, obviously, we now know in the background he was anything but.’

The crimes by Donaldson, who was told in court by the judge that he is facing a ‘lengthy’ sentence, have been called ‘evil’ and ‘heinous’ by current DUP leader Gavin Robinson in the wake of his conviction.

The man, who attended Donaldson’s Sunday School lectures, said no one in Kilkeel or the local church-going community ever suspected him at the time, given the image he projected.

He said of Donaldson: ‘He would have regularly worked with young people of teenage years, he was very much entrusted in that position.

‘The church didn’t know and I don’t think anybody had any inkling. He was very po-faced and very serious and you would never have imagined the life he was leading back then, because he was very much one of the right-hand men and very senior within the church.

‘It was a very evangelical church, so Christianity was taken extremely seriously, and he seemed to be very much one of the leaders in it right the way through from whatever point his supposed conversion would have been up until he was well into the world of politics and moved.

‘That business about the sex talk and the Bible in the car, it is extremely hypocritical and this was years after he had started abusing Complainant B,’ he said.

‘I think it’s the shock of realising that there’s a wolf among the sheep and that’s the thing, I think it’s the sheer hypocrisy and the vileness of what he was doing for the position that he was in.’

A spokesperson for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland said: ‘We recognise the genuine anguish, hurt, and sense of betrayal felt by so many people in relation to this case, especially his victims.

‘First and foremost, we would like to pay tribute to the two women for their bravery in coming forward in their pursuit of justice for the heinous crimes committed against them as children.

‘Both victims remain in our thoughts and prayers, and we commend them, and all victims of sexual abuse, who have the courage to come forward and confront their abusers,’ they said.

‘We would also encourage any victim of abuse to report any allegations either to the police, or to another agency, including our own safeguarding team, who will be willing and able to support them on their journey.’