Jurors in the trial of the former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson will hear about “difficult and traumatic incidents” the two alleged victims in the case allege occurred to them as children, Newry Crown Court has heard.
During the opening of the prosecution case in Newry Crown Court on Wednesday, the jury of seven men and five women were told that Donaldson was “always silent” when he carried out the abuse on one of his alleged victims.
He put his “hands down her pants a lot” and sexual activity was “not unexpected”.
Jurors heard about an alleged rape of one of the alleged victims, known as Complainant B, by Donaldson. She was allegedly abused from age seven to 13.
The court also heard of a church meeting arranged between Complainant B and Donaldson in the mid-1990s, when he apologised for what he “had done in the past”.
Donaldson, with an address in Dromore, Co Down, is accused of 18 offences – one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency with or towards a child, and 13 counts of indecent assault on a female – on dates between 1987 and 2008.
The 63-year-old denies all charges.
He sat in the dock writing notes as prosecution barrister Rosemary Walsh gave a summary of the evidence.
Eleanor Donaldson (60), with the same address, is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband. She denies the charges.
Instead, she will face a trial of the facts, which will run concurrently with her husband’s trial. A trial of the facts takes the place of a criminal trial where a court has ruled the defendant is medically unfit to stand trial.
She was not present in court on Wednesday as she has been ruled unfit to stand trial on the basis of medical evidence.
The jury was told by the prosecution barrister that parts of the alleged victims’ evidence are remembered “very vividly” while others are more “fractured”.
Evidence given in police interviews on March 11th, 2024, by Complainant B related to the alleged abuse she experienced from childhood by Donaldson.
There were two incidents that she “remembered vividly” because she “felt afraid”.
The first related to the alleged rape when she was pretending to be asleep and the defendant put his hands under her underwear.
She recalls thinking “please don’t let anything happen.”
He then “put his feet” between her feet and allegedly raped her.
Afterwards, she remembered “looking out the skylight in the room” and “wanting to go home.”
The complainant “didn’t sleep” that night and remembers “feeling sick” the next day, jurors were told.
The second related to an incident when Jeffrey Donaldson lifted her top and felt her breasts.
The incident was “particularly memorable” because Eleanor Donaldson allegedly “walked in, looked at her and walked away”, the jury was told.
Donaldson kept “touching her breasts” after Eleanor Donaldson had left.
Jurors heard that Complainant B cannot remember how often the abuse happened but it “happened a lot”.
“He was always silent” during the alleged abuse, the court was told.
Allegations of childhood abuse made by Complainant A were also outlined by the prosecution barrister, with the abuse starting when she was seven or eight and stopping when she was around 13.
While she found it hard to remember details, she remembered “waking up with sexual feelings” and becoming sexually aware from a young age.
From childhood, she had “strange dreams of men doing horrible things to her”, the court heard.
During one incident, Jeffrey Donaldson allegedly put his hand up her blouse and rubbed her breast area.
Touching her in this way had “become a very casual thing” because it was “done very often”, the court heard.
“In her mind, he (Donaldson) was showing her care”.
Comments were made about her physical appearance by Jeffrey Donaldson, particularly the size of her breasts.
Complainant A recalled a specific incident when she woke to a “bright light” and a “dark figure over her”.
She found her duvet was pulled off her and she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Her “nightie up to her chest line” and she was “lying with her legs open.”
Complainant A recalled the defendant “looking at her private parts” with the light.
She also alleged the defendant kissed her inappropriately when he put his tongue into her mouth and “pushed it around”.
She recalled that he laughed and “said it was a joke”.
Complainant A did not realise these alleged incidents were inappropriate but “recognises now” it “wasn’t normal,” the barrister said.
The complainant subsequently asked the defendant, Jeffrey Donaldson, about his behaviour, and she said he “nodded his head” and looked at the floor but did not say anything.
The prosecution barrister also told the jury they would hear police interviews from both Jeffrey Donaldson and Eleanor Donaldson in which they denied the allegations.
The claim that Jeffrey Donaldson had been in bed with Complainant B was “unbelievable”, he told police.
He stated he did “not a have a memory” of the alleged rape happening and denied touching Complainant B in the “sexual way described”, the court heard.
Jeffrey Donaldson also denied the sex abuse alleged by Complainant A.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 
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