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A LETTER WRITTEN by Jeffrey Donaldson to a woman who has accused him of sexual assault expressing “regret” was “nothing to do” with the allegations, a court has heard.
However, the woman told the trial of the former DUP leader that she believed the letter was an apology for years of alleged abuse.
Donaldson (63) is on trial at Newry Crown Court accused of rape and several counts of gross indecency and of indecent assault.
The former MP for Lagan Valley has pleaded not guilty to the 18 alleged offences.
The charges span a time period between 1985 and 2008 involving two alleged victims.
Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor Donaldson (60), from Dublinhill Road, Dromore, Co Down, denies several charges of aiding and abetting her husband’s alleged offending.
She is facing a trial of the facts after Judge Paul Ramsey ruled her unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds.
The trial of the facts will test the evidence in the case, but cannot result in a criminal conviction.
Kieran Vaughan KC, barrister for Jeffrey Donaldson, continued his cross-examination of Complainant A, one of the two alleged victims, this morning.
Donaldson sat in the dock wearing a dark grey suit and yellow tie, occasionally taking notes.
The trial had previously heard that Donaldson had written a letter to Complainant A in 2020 expressing “how much I truly regret all the hurt, pain and distressed I have caused”.
Today, the barrister asked the woman why she had not handed the letter to police when she had first been interviewed.
She told the court that she “wasn’t sure it was relevant at the time”.
He said: “Are you suggesting it is relevant or not relevant to the allegations?”
She said: “I think it is very relevant.”
The barrister said the letter had “nothing to do with you and sexual assault” but instead related to other behaviour by Donaldson.
The woman said while the letter did not mention sexual abuse it had “heavy connotations of guilt and shame and asking for forgiveness”.
She added: “I believe that letter is a letter of apology for what he did to me over the years.
“He is a very clever man, he would never write in writing what he had done but he could heavily suggest.”
Vaughan also referred to an allegation made by the woman that Donaldson had touched her breasts on a number of occasions when she was of primary school age.
He asked about her claim that she had been touched “skin on skin”.
She said: “Mostly, one or two occasions when it was over the top of a bra, but mostly skin on skin.”
The barrister drew attention to a meeting Complainant A had had with a police officer where she mentioned “touching over clothing”.
She said: “If that is what she has written, that is what was said.”
Vaughan said: “On the face of it that is inconsistent with what you told the jury yesterday, about touching under clothes.”
She said: “The facts are the facts, I am sticking to that.”
The barrister said the complainant “would have known what he was doing to you was wrong”.
She said: “Not necessarily, abuse is a very complicated thing.”
The barrister asked her if she was suggesting she had not known until she was an adult that what she claimed had happened to her was wrong.
She responded: “I began to piece together factually there were things that happened as normal that I should not have accepted as normal practice.”
The barrister then referred to an incident where the woman had claimed Donaldson had “perched” over the top of her, using a light to look at her “private parts”.
When challenged about her account, she said: “The light was focused on my genital area.”
Vaughan said: “I suggest that is not true.”
The barrister added: “You were confused and you were not sure of what you had seen.”
She said: “To this day I am still confused….I am honest about that.”
The trial, which is expected to last between three and four weeks, continues.
Jeffrey Donaldson, a former long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, was arrested and charged at the end of March 2024.
He resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.
Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into devolved government at Stormont after a two-year boycott of the power-sharing institutions.
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