The \u201cexpectation\u201d is the trial of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson on historic sex offences will go ahead as planned later this month, a court has heard. <\/p>\n
Further medical evidence is still expected regarding the fitness of Eleanor Donaldson to stand trial, with one \u201coption\u201d before the court that the cases against each defendant could proceed in parallel. <\/p>\n
During a brief hearing at Newry Crown Court on Tuesday, district judge Paul Ramsey said he was \u201cvery keen\u201d for the trial to proceed as scheduled on May 26th and he would be \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d if it did not do so. <\/p>\n
He listed a further review hearing on May 19th and said he expected to see \u201call the medical position\u201d on this date.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be told on the 19th of May … there\u2019s another report awaited, or there\u2019s another examination,\u201d the judge said. <\/p>\n
Jeffrey Donaldson (63) with an address in Dromore, Co Down, previously pleaded not guilty to 18 offences \u2013 one count of rape, four of gross indecency with or towards a child, and 13 of indecent assault on a female \u2013 on dates between 1987 and 2008.<\/p>\n
Eleanor Donaldson (59), of the same address, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of aiding and abetting in connection with the charges faced by her husband.<\/p>\n
The couple, who deny all charges, were not in court on Tuesday as neither defendant was required to attend.<\/p>\n
The trial, which was originally due to begin in March 2025, has already been postponed twice due to a deterioration in the mental health of Eleanor Donaldson.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday prosecution barrister Rosemary Walsh told the court that a further examination of Eleanor Donaldson was scheduled for May 15th, and the doctor would provide a report on May 18th that would allow them to determine the way forward. <\/p>\n
Defence barrister Ian Turkington said that by the next court hearing he hoped to have a more up-to-date medical picture from Eleanor Donaldson\u2019s \u201ctreating physician\u201d. <\/p>\n
He said there was \u201ccogent medical evidence\u201d before the court in relation to Eleanor Donaldson\u2019s \u201cunfitness\u201d and it would be \u201cgrossly unfair\u201d to proceed to trial if she was not fit to do so. <\/p>\n
If the medical report of May 18th determined she was unfit, he said the defence\u2019s view was that the court could proceed \u201cin a parallel fashion\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge said this was one of the \u201coptions\u201d before the court. <\/p>\n
The long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, Jeffrey Donaldson resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after he was arrested and charged with historical sex offences in March 2024. <\/p>\n
Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into Stormont after a two-year boycott of the Northern Ireland powersharing institutions.<\/p>\n
The then deputy leader, Gavin Robinson, the MP for east Belfast, took over as DUP leader. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cexpectation\u201d is the trial of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson on historic sex offences will go ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,41435,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-469606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-jeffrey-donaldson","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}