Donaldson told police sex abuse allegations were 'unbelievable'

In a police interview Sir Jeffrey Donaldson "absolutely categorically" denied the alleged circumstances around an incident in which he is accused of raping one of the two complainants in the trial against him.

Sir Jeffrey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 18 sex abuse charges, including one count of rape, allegedly committed between 1985 and 2008.

He told police after his arrest in March 2024 that the allegations were "unbelievable".

A detective constable told Newry Crown Court that Sir Jeffrey was interviewed for a total of four-and-a-half hours. Three hours of the interview will be played in court.

Warning: This story contains explicit details that some readers may find distressing

The former DUP leader was arrested at his County Down home and questioned for several hours at Antrim Police Station, before being charged.

A prosecution barrister said that his interview had been edited to remove "repetition and irrelevant material", with the consent of all parties.

She said what was being played is an accurate reflection of Sir Jeffrey's case.

In the interview, a police officer put it to him that he was alleged to have begun to "rub [his] penis around the area of her clitoris" and "inserted [his] penis into the entrance of her vagina".

The officer asked him: "Do you have any comment to make on that?"

Sir Jeffrey replied: "That did not happen. The answer to that is absolutely no."

He was asked if anything of that nature had ever happened, in any circumstances – to which he replied: "Never. Not ever."

A separate alleged incident was put to Sir Jeffrey, in which he was said to have lifted up Complainant B's top and "started playing with her breasts".

He was asked in the interview if he had ever touched the complainant's breasts or had ever done anything remotely like that. Sir Jeffrey said: "No, no, no."

The trial previously heard an allegation by Complainant B that Lady Donaldson witnessed this particular incident but walked away without speaking.

This was put to Sir Jeffrey.

He replied: "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.

"That's the nature of Eleanor."

The police interview then addressed a meeting that Sir Jeffrey attended in the 1990s at the Christian Family Centre in Armoy in County Antrim, run by Davey and Linda Hoy.

Complainant B had spent time staying at the centre and the court previously heard that a meeting had been arranged with Sir Jeffrey after she told a Christian pastor that she had been sexually abused as a child.

Sir Jeffrey said during the interview that at no stage had anyone alleged any of the kind of incidents subsequently put to him by police.

"Nobody put any allegation to me about inappropriate behaviour of any kind," he said of the meeting.

The jury previously heard that Sir Jeffrey apologised to the complainant during this meeting.

He acknowledged in his interview that he apologised to the complainant during the meeting but he said it was due to her having previously felt "uncomfortable" and he "accepted that was how she felt".

At the start of the interviews, shown on Monday morning, Sir Jeffrey gave his full name and date of birth.

Referring to the two alleged victims, a police officer is then heard asking: "You are aware of the two complainants involved and the timeframes we are talking about.

"Is there anything you want to say about this?"

Sir Jeffrey replied: "No".

Earlier in the trial, the jury heard one of the alleged victims, known as Complainant A, claim Sir Jeffrey had shone a bright light, possibly a torch, on her private parts.

Sir Jeffrey raised the incident in the first part of the interview.

He said: "She thought I was shining a light at her… and you know I didn't have a light.

"I wasn't doing anything untoward.

"At no stage has [Complainant A] ever said to me that I touched her or did anything inappropriate on that occasion."

Sir Jeffrey's wife Lady Eleanor Donaldson denies charges of aiding and abetting.

She faces a trial of the facts after she was previously deemed unfit to face a conventional trial on mental health grounds, and is therefore not participating in proceedings.

Her police interview will be played to the jury at Newry Crown Court on Tuesday.

The offences against the two alleged victims allegedly occurred between 1985 and 2008.

Both complainants in the trial reported their allegations to the Police Service of Northern Ireland in March 2024.

Sir Jeffrey denies acts of gross indecency and indecent assault against Complainant A when she was a child, between 1999 and 2008.

Other alleged offences, dating back to 1985, including a charge of rape, relate to a second woman, Complainant B, when she was also a child, which he also denies.