Jurors in the trial of Jeffrey Donaldson have heard him deny claims by a woman that he raped her as a child, with the former DUP leader insisting the alleged incident “absolutely categorically did not happen”.
Recordings of police interviews carried out with Donaldson were played at Newry Crown Court on Monday as the trial enters its third week.
Claims of childhood sexual abuse made by the two alleged victims in the case, known as Complainant A and Complainant B, were put to Donaldson by police following his arrest at his home in Dromore, Co Down, in March 2024.
He repeatedly denied the offences and told detectives “I can’t get my head around this notion” that he allegedly raped a child.
The 4½-hour-long interviews took place at Antrim police station and were edited down to three hours for the jury.
Donaldson (63), who denies all 18 sex offence charges against him, described the rape allegations made by Complainant B – who cannot be named for legal reasons – as “unbelievable”.
He and his wife Eleanor Donaldson were arrested at their home in the early hours of March 28th, 2024. She denies charges of aiding and abetting.
Audio recordings of the police interviews with Jeffrey Donaldson were played to the jury of seven men and five women throughout Monday.
Dressed in a navy suit and blue tie, the former Lagan Valley MP made notes as they listened to the PSNI tapes.
Asked about the rape allegation, a police officer told Donaldson that Complainant B described him “pulling her legs apart with your two feet (so) that you manoeuvred yourself somewhat on top of her”.
“She could hear you breathing. Your head was very close to hers. Do you have any comment on that?” the officer asked.
Donaldson replied: “That did not happen. The answer to that is, absolutely no.”
He added: “I’m sorry but I can’t get my head around this notion. That is something that has never happened, would not happen.”
A separate incident involving Complainant B – the older of the two alleged victims – was also put to Donaldson, in which she claimed he followed her into a room and “lifted all of her clothing on her upper half to expose her breasts and started playing with her breasts”.
He denied the allegation.
The complainant also claimed that Eleanor Donaldson had opened the door of the room, “turned around and walked out” and closed the door behind her.
He rejected this allegation and described his wife as a “very protective” kind of person.
“If my wife had felt there was something wrong going on, my wife would have said at the time and would have intervened at the time,” he told police.
Detectives also asked about a meeting arranged between Complainant B and Donaldson at the Christian Family Centre in Armoy, Co Antrim, around 1996/97, when the alleged victim claimed “he apologised for what he’d done to me in the past”.
Donaldson rejected this version of events.
He told police he apologised for the complainant feeling uncomfortable about their relationship in the past.
“I said I was sorry she felt that way… and hoped we could move forward on a better footing.”
At the end of the meeting, he claimed he and the alleged victim “embraced”.
“That was the end of it,” he said.
“It was actually a positive experience”.
Jeffrey Donaldson told police that “at no stage” in the meeting did “anybody allege any of the incidents you mentioned here this afternoon”.
Earlier on Monday Donaldson denied doing “anything untoward” to a Complainant A, who accused him of abusing her as a child during an incident in which he allegedly shone a light at her.
Earlier in the trial Complainant A alleged that in her early teens she woke in the night to find Donaldson perched “over the top of me” holding a bright light, with her nightie pulled up and “lying with my legs kind of open”.
“I knew he was looking at my private parts,” she said.
Asked by detectives about Complainant A, he replied: “The only thing I can pinpoint in all of this was one particular incident that occurred a number of years ago.
“She woke up and was startled by this … she thought I was shining a light at her, and, you know, I didn’t have a light. I wasn’t doing anything untoward.”
Pressed on the matter by police, he said “at no stage” had Complainant A “ever said to me that I touched her or did anything inappropriate on that occasion”.
Referring to the two alleged victims, the detective asked: “You are aware of the two complainants involved and the time frames we are talking about.
“Is there anything you want to say about this?”
Donaldson replied: “No.”
The detective added that Complainant A claimed she woke up and “could see that the light was directed towards her privates”.
He told Donaldson that there was a suggestion “you were deliberately looking at her for a sexual motivation”.
“Were you?” he asked.
“No,” he replied.
He also denied a separate allegation relating to Complainant A in which she claimed he kissed her and “moved his tongue round her mouth” before laughing it off as a “joke”.
“That did not happen and I would have no reason to do that,” he replied.
The only person he had ever kissed on the mouth was “my wife”, Donaldson told police.
The alleged offences against the two women are alleged to have occurred between 1985 and 2008.
Both women reported their allegations to the Police Service of Northern Ireland in March 2024.
Of the 18 charges facing Jeffrey Donaldson, 10 – one count of rape and nine of indecent assault – relate to Complainant B. The other eight – four of gross indecency with or towards a child and four of indecent assault – relate to Complainant A.
Eleanor Donaldson has denied five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband.
She has been ruled unfit to stand trial on the basis of medical evidence and is instead facing a trial of the facts, running concurrently with her husband’s trial.
The trial continues.
