Former deputy Jeffrey Donaldson, sentenced to 15 years in prison for pedophilia

Jeffrey Donaldson, the main leader of Northern Ireland until his resounding and shameful fall for proven crimes of pedophilia, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison at the Newry criminal court, a few kilometers from the border with the Republic of Ireland. The former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), of strict Presbyterian faith and principles, had been convicted in June, before the same court, of 18 counts of assault and sexual indecency, including one act of rape.

The victims are two women close to the former politician, whose identity is protected for life, who denounced the chain of abuse they suffered as children. The youngest, identified as witness A in the trial, detailed in her oral testimony touching, kissing with tongue penetration and other indecent acts that she suffered between 1999 and 2008.

Donaldson had been cruel to Witness B the previous decade, whom he repeatedly abused and whom he raped on at least one occasion, as the jury accepted in its verdict on June 22.

Both women claim that the pedophile's wife, Eleanor Donaldson, witnessed the abuse on separate occasions. "She looked, turned around and closed the door on her way out," says witness B from the day she was raped.

Eleanor Donaldson was absent from the proceedings due to mental insanity, but the court has accepted as feasible facts the five charges of concealment and complicity that she faces. The woman cannot be judicially convicted and her legal team is preparing to appeal the verdict. The former politician's lawyers have also requested permission to appeal the conviction before the appeal court.

Donalson was arrested in March 2024, days after his triumphant return from St. Patrick's Day celebrations in Washington. He was the head of British unionism, a leader of the DUP who supported the minority conservative government of Theresa May and an intransigent negotiator who forced the review of the Brexit trade agreements before agreeing to the reinstatement of self-government shared with the Republican party, after two years in suspension.

He defected from the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in opposition to the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement and later joined the DUP, led by the irascible Presbyterian Ian Paisley. By 2021, he had already reached the top of the Northern Irish radical formation.

The trial has uncovered the double life of the devout practicing Protestant, member of the ultra-reactionary Orange Order, former military man and former British parliamentarian. Donaldson renounced, after being convicted of the 18 crimes he faced, the title of knight (sir) and the position in the king's privy council that he enjoyed in recent years.

Judge Paul Ramsey, who presided over the hearing in Newry, highlighted, when handing down the sentence this Thursday, the condemned man's lack of repentance, remorse or empathy. "There has not been, and certainly will not be, a single word of regret, apology or shame from this man that could at least offer his victims a shred of comfort," the magistrate observed.