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.

Well I bet he wasn’t the only one.

Partying and lording it around the place on taxpayer’s time and money and clearly feeling they were untouchable.

I don't know if this is relevant to the DUP's behaviour but one thing I've noticed from being friends with some strict/evangelical Christians is that they don't seem to feel qualified or authorised to judge other members of their congregation or other evangelical Christians who behave poorly.

They seem to strongly believe that any judgement is between the wrongdoer and God, and that if the wrongdoer says that they've sought forgiveness from God and feel as though it's been granted, and they want to put it all behind them, then that seems to be enough/acceptable.

Donaldson also got clergy involved too and they seemed to feel he was forgivable so perhaps that also influenced others in their view of his behaviour 🤔 I genuinely don't understand this attitude myself...

I know exactly what you mean @UtopiaPlanitia, about those people who use 'God' as a spiritual dry cleaners. I have met them. Unfortunately that sort of Christianity seems to be having a resurgence. NI is now full of criminal sorts, druggies, wifebeaters etc who have 'found God', fall off the wagon, back on again...

My husband has a habit of saying "Aye, they found God just before they lost their knees" when he's on a rant about some of the ex corner boys who are now Youth/Community Workers etc.

Maybe they kept a lid on it as it didn't utterly horrify them??

I see Jeffrey is appealing all of his convictions.

Hopefully it results in a longer sentence.

Hopefully. He won’t be properly engaging with the probation service if he’s appealing, so hopefully will result in a harsher sentence.

He truly is an evil ba*rd
Still trying to make the victims out as liars.
Suppose he knows he will be elderly if he makes it out alive so it's worth a shot.

I'm sure he was devastated to see himself & Eleanor on the bonfires this year next to the tricolour. They are truly hated now by their own 🤣

Good. They deserve every bit of hate thrown at them.

Yep.

All hair shirt and apologies to men and the "Honours'" system..🙄

Absolute cunt to all the girls/women he abused and destroyed.😡😡😡

So Eleanor was in a caravan park with her sister, and asked to leave by residents. She can't be that ill!

Ridiculous! It’s just so awful - some people really are above the law! You would really think to be unable to stand trial means you are in a psychiatric unit or similar - not in a caravan on holiday.
I saw a lady on trial in Lisburn for selling WLI illegally and wasn’t able to stand trial for medical reasons. The judge said you can’t evade the law or something to that effect - well clearly some people are allowed to!

I wonder what happened in that caravan park - did the other holidaymakers surround her caravan? She must be generally ostracised where she lives too. What a wretched life she is going to have from now on.

I thought she was in a psychiatric unit? Was it just a day release or something?
How stupid of her to go to Cranfield , right next to Kilkeel where her & her sicko husband are from. She's obviously going to be recognised there.

I can’t believe she’s just allowed to walk around freely after being too unwell to be accountable for her actions in the trial!

Such arrogance . Hardly surprising though . Hard to believe that family members are being supportive considering the identity of the victims. Is the whole lot of them seriously fucked up. ? She should be in jail .

I had an interesting conversation with a friend recently. I only know one person from Kilkeel, and he was also convicted of sex offences (unconnected to the Donaldsons). ED’s sister’s husband (I believe also from kilkeel) is also a convicted paedophile. It is geographically remote and therefore a historically insular community. My friend’s theory is that sa is rife within the community over many generations, to the point that it is normalised - hence ED not intervening. The fact that family are standing by her would strengthen the theory that there is an element of desensitisation to it. Only a theory, but interesting. Of course, I should caveat that not everyone from the community etc, but that is 4 people that I know of, from a very small community who have been convicted of sexual offences (or found on the facts).

Not sure about Cranfield but am aware many Site Licences prohibit anyone convicted of sexual offences from being on the site, and rightly so with the amount of young ones who are around.

It makes me mad and sad.

It's a strange place alright nigellaawesome 😳

Mad and sad kind of sums up how I've been feeling about NI all week.😕

Never been (or intend) to go to Kilkeel, but that’s an interesting theory! I’ve been feeling despondent about living here too, is it really a good place to raise two daughters?

The rates of DV in Northern Ireland are terrifying yes. There is such a 'hard man' culture. I think a v high percentage of the Ballymena rioters had convictions for domestic abuse.
However, the physical and sexual abuse of women and children occurs in every society and institution where violent or predatory men are not held to account, for whatever reason. It all boils down to men having too much unscrutinised power. I hope things will change for the better. When I was a child, 'battered wives' were women people spoke about, but the law didn't get involved unless there was actual bodily harm (and often not even then). As a child, my ex- partner lived next door to an RUC man who beat his wife black and blue and threw her down the stairs regularly. Now that man would be sacked, convicted and in prison.