LAST UPDATE | 19 Jun

A JURY IN the sex offences trial of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has finished its deliberations for the day and will continue on Monday.

The jury at Newry Crown Court has been considering its verdict for around seven hours in total, after deliberating for three hours and 10 minutes on Thursday.

The jury broke for lunch at 1pm and will resume deliberations at around 1.45pm.

At 3.15pm, they were given notice that they were to return on Monday morning.

“You have been deliberating for some considerable hours and it is appropriate we should stop today and return fresh after the weekend,” said Judge Paul Ramsey.

The jury will return on Monday at 10.30am and the judge issued his “usual warning not to talk about the case outside court, and to be care of the internet and social media.”

Before sending the jury out on Thursday, the judge remarked: “What I am interested in at this moment of time is a unanimous decision, one way or another.”

He reminded the jury that the “prosecution must bear the burden of proving the case beyond reasonable doubt”.

“It’s a term you have heard in movies and the like, but you need to be sure.”

The judge also called on the jury “not to be swayed by sympathy or prejudice against one or the other”.

The 63-year-old former MP has pleaded not guilty to 18 alleged offences.

The charges include one count of rape and allegations of indecent assault and gross indecency, and span a period between 1985 and 2008 involving two alleged victims.

Complainants A and B have both given evidence at the trial.

Both women allege they were abused as children.

Donaldson spent two days giving evidence during the trial.

His 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 on mental health grounds.

The trial of the facts will test the evidence in the case but cannot result in a criminal conviction.

Earlier this week, the judge remarked that “trial of the facts” was the most Googled term in Northern Ireland last month but that such a trial is “not unheard of, had happened before and will happen again.”