Jeffrey Donaldson, former leader of Northern Ireland’s DUP, was jailed for 15 years after being convicted of 18 historical sex offences, including rape.
NEWRY (United Kingdom): The former leader of Northern Ireland’s main pro-UK party Jeffrey Donaldson was jailed on Thursday for 15 years after being convicted of 18 historical sex offences including rape.
Handing down the sentence, Judge Paul Ramsey said Donaldson had experienced a “catastrophic descent into disgrace” and had shown no “regret, apology or shame”.
The jury in Newry, south of Belfast, found Donaldson guilty on all charges in June, following a trial that focused on two women who the ex-politician sexually abused as children over a period spanning more than two decades.
He was convicted of one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency with or towards a child and 13 counts of indecent assault, related to incidents between 1985 and 2008.
Donaldson led the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from December 2019 until his resignation in March 2024, when he was charged by police.
A heavyweight in Northern Irish unionist politics for decades, he was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.
The DUP said in a statement that the former leader “deserves every day of the lengthy prison service he has to serve”.
Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, was found guilty on five charges of aiding and abetting her husband’s offences 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 Northern Ireland MP.
The allegations emerged just weeks after Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly was restored after a two-year boycott by the DUP over post-Brexit trading rules.