Jeffrey Donaldson

[Princesspeaches99]

He's just been found guilty of historical child sexual offences. I'm so glad that justice has been served for the two victims. His vile wife has also been found guilty in her trial of the facts. So many thought they would both be cleared because of who they are.

Drunk and projectile vomiting over the mayor of Beijing? Wtf. He sounds like a Viz character.

Why did none of these people report him?

Not being from NI I had to look Kilkeel up on Google Maps. It looks isolated and has way way too many churches for a very small town.

Not difficult to picture that nobody reported anything to safeguarding as they thought the church was the highest authority, just sent people on endless rounds of 'spiritual counselling' that let the men get away with anything and blamed everything on the women.

For a society so anti-Catholic it's entirely reminiscent of the Catholic Church letting priests say they were sorry and forgiving them until they did it again next week.

The abuse and other behaviour seems to.have been widely known amongst DUP members yet not one of them raised concerns. Shame on the whole damn lot of them. Child abuse, spouting homophobic comments while visiting a gay sauna, drinking to excess while on Govt business, flaunting younger women in House of Commons bar. So many knew and said nothing.
As for the Christian counselling centre!! The Hoys are a bloody disgrace. They should have reported the abuse as a major safeguarding issue. Instrad they brought the woman face to face with her abuser! FFS. They should be facing charges for that alone. How many others have had to deal with the same?

For a society so anti-Catholic it's entirely reminiscent of the Catholic Church letting priests say they were sorry and forgiving them until they did it again next week.
Yes. I recall quite a lot of gloating in some circles in the North when the Catholic Church came under scrutiny for child sexual abuse. And it's now becoming clear that other churches harboured their own paedophiles and deviants, and covered up abuse in many instances.

From that thing last night, a senior PSNI officer KNEW about his peadophilia and abuse and did nothing for a year?

That's what I took from it. yes. Approach made to Presbyterian church safeguarding lead in early 2023 who then arranged meeting with senior CARE officer, who quickly found out the perpetrator was Donaldson. So if the victims had been overwhelmed by the prospect of a trial and decided against making a complaint, what then would have happened?

If the victims weren’t willing/able to testify PPS wouldn’t have proceeded with charges.

As I understand it the victims sought advice from Church House early 2023, a senior police officer advised them, then there was a period of about 9 months when nothing happened. They made their formal complaints in early 2024 and once the Donaldsons were charged (April 24, I think) the PPS would have awaited the full file and made a decision then. It all happened quite quickly by NI standards, it can take three years to get a rape/murder case to Crown Court here, though that may be down to issues with forensics, not applicable here.

Agreed. I’m English and in England but interested in all of the UK. Had it not have been for this thread, I wouldn’t have seen the documentary or known of it so thankyou.

Agree. This is a bigger story (as about people and has absolutely no humour in it) than the Peter Murrell story but that was all over the news and social media.

And these freaks had enormous influence over the whole of UK politics after Brexit. Theresa May chose to go into a power sharing arrangement with them.

I agree with you. It’s a bigger story than Peter Murrell but as usual Northern Ireland doesn’t seem to matter too much to the UK media.

Surely the police office had a safeguarding duty?

Very weird that Eleanor and her sister Joan both have husbands who are convicted sex offenders.

I could be very wrong, but those convictions are only in relation those who were actually found out I reckon.

You would think so. And also, Special Branch have a duty to ensure that a public official isn't open to blackmail or to being compromised in any way, so did this senior officer pass on the record of the conversation? Of course, this is why people like Jim Allister are now alleging that the govt did know and were using it as leverage to get a Brexit deal over the line.

Re. Eleanor Donaldson, I was struck last night by what an odd figure she cut even years ago, very tense and unwell-looking. Not to excuse her shameful lack of action, but the marriage was clearly an utter sham and she spoke of wanting a divorce.

A very odd figure! Though I found the assistant’s comments about “once the kids turn 18 I’ll be gone” a bit strange. Not really in keeping with the whole “what would the neighbours think” if she left him and essentially turning a blind eye to heinous crimes as the jury declared

I watched the documentary last night and she looked miserable. The bit where he got elected and hugged her, and she turned round to someone and raised her eyebrows! She seemed to dislike him. Can’t begin to understand why she acted like she did, zero sympathy.

Apparently, she was actually charged with gross indecency and the commission of sexual acts in relation to Witness B (the older victim)? I didn't realise that until today, but it's obvious that quite a lot of what the jury hears is not reported.

I think its because of the party he represented. If it was the other side it would be a different story.

What !
And she she’s not standing trial ?
I don’t understand. 🥲

I don't know what to make of it. I probably shouldn't have posted that, but I asked AI (🙄I know) what she was charged with and that was the response. I could only find refs to aiding and abetting, though one of those charges applied to the rape, which was odd - was she physically present? I do think there was a lot spoken about in court not disclosed to the public. I heard yesterday that the snake JD is appealing! Says that the decision to hear the case against Eleanor simultaneously prejudiced his trial. It was the things she said in her interviews that sank him, really.

One of the victims said in court that Eleanor Donaldson walked in to the room while her husband was sexually abusing the victim, saw what he was doing (pretty sure the victim says Eleanor looked her in the eye) and walked out.

Awful 😞

Yep she definitely turned a blind eye to the abuse. She probably knew what way he was inclined before they even married 🤢

Something I noticed in the documentary was how his colleague in the DUP , Diane Forsythe sort of moved her skirt over as he was about to sit down next to her. It could have been due to the cameras but she looked uncomfortable. Her father, Glynn Hanna is also in the DUP and was a school friend of Donaldson. She grew up in Kilkeel too.

Jeez the stories about Donaldson are coming out thick and fast now, aren't they. Emma L-P described him as 'dangerous', he groped a woman, another drunken vomiting incident, in NYC this time...the question is, why did the DUP keep a lid on all this terrible behaviour and elect him as party leader? I really think this might damage the DUP beyond repair. It's mindboggling for a party of bible-bashers that they were quietly harbouring a scoundrel like Donaldson for all those years.