LAST UPDATE | 29 May
A WOMAN WHO alleges she was sexually abused by Jeffrey Donaldson when she was a child insisted “facts are facts” when challenged by the former DUP leader’s barrister over her claims.
The woman, known as complainant A, was cross-examined throughout Friday at Newry Crown Court at the sex offences trial of the ex-MP and his wife Eleanor Donaldson.
During evidence on Friday, it emerged that Eleanor Donaldson had placed a bugging device in her husband’s car over fears he was having an affair with a constituent.
Jeffrey Donaldson (63) is on trial at Newry Crown Court accused of rape and several counts of gross indecency and of indecent assault.
The ex-MP has pleaded not guilty to the 18 alleged offences.
The charges span a time period between 1985 and 2008 involving two alleged victims.
Eleanor Donaldson, from Dublinhill Road, Dromore, Co Down, denies several charges of aiding and abetting.
She is facing a trial of the facts after Judge Paul Ramsey ruled her unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds.
The trial of the facts will test the evidence in the case, but cannot result in a criminal conviction.
Kieran Vaughan KC, barrister for Jeffrey Donaldson, continued his cross-examination of complainant A, one of the two alleged victims, on Friday.
Donaldson sat in the dock wearing a dark grey suit and yellow tie, occasionally taking notes.
The jury heard a claim that a letter written by Donaldson to complainant A in 2020 expressing “regret” was “nothing to do” with the allegations she has made against him.
The trial had previously heard that Donaldson had written the letter to the complainant expressing “how much I truly regret all the hurt, pain and distress I have caused”.
On Friday, the barrister asked the woman why she had not handed the letter to police when she had first been interviewed.
She told the court that she “wasn’t sure it was relevant at the time”.
He said: “Are you suggesting it is relevant or not relevant to the allegations?”
She said: “I think it is very relevant.”
The barrister said the letter had “nothing to do with you and sexual assault”, but instead related to other behaviour by Donaldson.
The woman said while the letter did not mention sexual abuse, it had “heavy connotations of guilt and shame, and asking for forgiveness”.
She added: “I believe that letter is a letter of apology for what he did to me over the years.
“He is a very clever man, he would never write in writing what he had done but he could heavily suggest.”
Vaughan also referred to an allegation made by the woman that Donaldson had touched her breasts on a number of occasions when she was of primary school age.
He asked about her claim that she had been touched “skin on skin”.
She said: “Mostly, one or two occasions when it was over the top of a bra, but mostly skin on skin.”
The barrister drew attention to a meeting complainant A had with a police officer where she mentioned “touching over clothing”.
She said: “If that is what she has written, that is what was said.”
Vaughan said: “On the face of it that is inconsistent with what you told the jury yesterday, about touching under clothes.”
She said: “The facts are the facts, I am sticking to that.”
The barrister said the complainant “would have known what he was doing to you was wrong”.
She said: “Not necessarily, abuse is a very complicated thing.”
The barrister asked her if she was suggesting that she had not known until she was an adult that what she claimed had happened to her was wrong.
She responded: “I began to piece together factually there were things that happened as normal that I should not have accepted as normal practice.”
The barrister then referred to an incident where the woman had claimed Donaldson had “perched” over the top of her, using a light to look at her “private parts”.
When challenged about her account, she said: “The light was focused on my genital area.”
Vaughan said: “I suggest that is not true.”
The barrister added: “You were confused and you were not sure of what you had seen.”
She said: “To this day I am still confused … I am honest about that.”
After lunch, the woman said she had spoken in 2023 to a safeguarding figure within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and also a police officer.
Vaughan asked why she had then waited until 2024 to lodge a formal complaint about the sexual abuse allegations.
She said she was not, at that point, ready to make a formal complaint.
She said: “It was a huge decision.
“I knew this would be an extremely public affair, involving media. It was a huge, huge decision.”
Complainant A said she had been “extremely anxious” about reporting the allegations to the police.
She said: “I had doubt about doing this, I very nearly changed my mind.”
The woman is due to be questioned by a barrister representing Eleanor Donaldson next week.
The trial, which is expected to last between three and four weeks, will resume on Monday.
Jeffrey Donaldson, a former long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, was arrested and charged at the end of March 2024.
He resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.
Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into devolved government at Stormont after a two-year boycott of the power-sharing institutions.