Jeffrey Donaldson found guilty of child sexual offences including rape

Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of sexual offences against two victims who were children at the time of the abuse. The former Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader faces a potential jail sentence after a jury at Newry crown court on Monday convicted him of 18 offences including rape, indecent assault and gross indecency. 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. Judge Paul Ramsey deemed the 60-year-old unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds so she faced a trial of facts, which tests evidence but does not result in a criminal conviction. In a four-week trial , Donaldson, 63, 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. …