A woman who accused Jeffrey Donaldson of raping her as a child has said it will be “seared into my brain for the rest of my life”, Newry Crown Court has heard.
Challenged by the ex-DUP leader’s defence barrister over why she did not tell anyone at the time, she told jurors that was “my biggest mistake”.
“I didn’t have the words. I knew it was wrong, I was so afraid of, was it my fault?”
She said she will “regret” it every day that she didn’t tell someone at the time.
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Donaldson (63) 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 1985 and 2008. He denies the charges.
His trial began at Newry Crown Court last week.
The defence’s case, his barrister Kieran Vaughan told the court on Tuesday, is that “Jeffrey Donaldson did not touch you inappropriately” and the alleged rape did not happen.
A police interview in which his second alleged victim claimed he raped her as a primary schoolchild was played at Tuesday’s trial.
Complainant B told police the defendant later “came and apologised to me ... he apologised for what he’d done to me in the past”.
She said the “apology” took place at a meeting arranged at the Christian Family Centre in Armoy, Co Antrim, when she was 17 or 18 years old.
Asked by police how she knew the apology was for the alleged sexual abuse, the witness, known as Complainant B, said it was because she told the daughter of the couple who ran the centre, Linda and Davey Hoy, about the abuse, and she told her parents.
Complainant B told police the defendant’s wife, Eleanor Donaldson, contacted her through an intermediary in 2023 to tell her she “wanted to meet to apologise to me”.
Complainant B said Linda Hoy sent her a message saying Eleanor Donaldson “needs my forgiveness to move forward”.
Complainant B did not respond to the request.
Earlier on Tuesday, the jury heard Complainant B outline in the police interview the alleged rape.
She said she remembered Jeffrey Donaldson “putting his hands inside my pants” and then “pulling my legs apart with his two feet”.
She told police she “was still pretending to be asleep hoping it would stop”.
“I felt really, really sick.”
She said while the alleged abuse was taking place, she remembered thinking “please let that be it” because “it had happened before”.
She claimed he then raped her.
“I just wanted to scream out, leave me alone, but I didn’t.”
She remembered his breathing “wasn’t just in and out, it was laboured and panting”.
The following day she felt “sick” with a “sore stomach” and did not want to go on an outing.
“Everyone made fun of me for not wanting to go and I couldn’t tell them why.”
The complainant also described a second alleged assault in which she said the defendant followed her into a room and “closed the door”.
She claimed he “lifted up my top and started playing with my breasts and stuff”.
Complainant B told police the alleged abuse was “always in silence”.
“He never threatened me.
“I just remember his breathing. He just had this terrible breath, panting sound.”
She claimed “the difference” with the second alleged incident “was that time, someone walked in”.
Eleanor Donaldson “walked in” but “turned round and walked out”, closing the door behind her, the complainant said.
She alleged years later that, Eleanor Donaldson “tried to contact me to apologise for not doing anything”.
Eleanor Donaldson (60), of the same address, is charged with five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband – charges she denies.
Eleanor Donaldson was not present in court as she has been ruled unfit to stand trial on the basis of medical evidence. She will instead face a trial of the facts – which replaces a criminal trial in such circumstances – and which is running concurrently with her husband’s trial, which began in Newry Crown Court last week.
In the police interview, the complainant said Donaldson “put his hands in my pants a lot”.
She said she “couldn’t tell anybody” about the alleged abuse but she remembered “telling my imaginary friend”.
On Tuesday afternoon, under cross-examination by Vaughan , Complainant B rejected suggestions she was “conjuring up” these claims.
“No, I wish they hadn’t happened,” she said.
“I cannot forget those things that happened to me and I wish I could.”
Complainant B told jurors she had a yellow toy truck with a trailer that she “used to drive around the house” while talking to her imaginary friend.
“I suggest it’s a detail you added on to make your story more plausible,” the defence barrister said.
“I actually disagree with you on that point, I’m sorry to say,” the complainant replied.
Vaughan also referred to medical notes from 2008 in which Complainant B tells a doctor that abuse started when she was “nine or 10”.
He suggested this was inconsistent with her evidence to police in 2024, in which she stated the abuse began when she was younger, around seven years old.
Complainant B told jurors she sought counselling which led to her remembering “more details” about the alleged abuse.
“I remembered part of it but not everything,” she said.
Vaughan suggested “none of it happened”.
“I think it’s really quite naive for you to say that,” she replied. “It’s true, it’s happened. [Jeffery Donaldson] has apologised.
Complainant B told jurors: “Let me say, everything I am saying is the truth. I swear on my life it’s the truth. It will never change what happened to me when I was younger.”
The defence barrister put it to Complainant B that “you have to say that” as she was now in Newry Crown Court and the case had attracted “massive publicity”.
She replied: “No. What I am saying is the truth. No matter how many questions you have, how many photographs you have, nothing will change what that man did to me.”
The trial continues.
