{"id":469655,"date":"2026-05-05T14:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469655\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T14:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:55:13","slug":"judge-says-it-remains-his-expectation-that-donaldson-trial-begins-on-may-26th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/469655\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge says it remains his \u2018expectation\u2019 that Donaldson trial begins on May 26th"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge<\/strong> has made clear he will be \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d if the historical sexual offences trial<\/strong> of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson<\/strong> does not proceed on May 26th<\/strong> as scheduled.<\/p>\n

Proceedings against Donaldson and his wife, Eleanor Donaldson, have been delayed twice due to medical issues related to her.<\/p>\n

A review hearing in Newry Crown Court on Tuesday was told that two further medical assessments of Eleanor Donaldson still had to be carried out ahead of the trial date later this month.<\/p>\n

Judge Paul Ramsey acknowledged that \u201cgenuine medical evidence\u201d remained outstanding but he said it was nevertheless his \u201cexpectation rather than hope\u201d that a trial would commence as scheduled on May 26th.<\/p>\n

\"SirJeffrey Donaldson leaves Newry Crown Court at an earlier hearing last year (PA)<\/p>\n

He listed another review hearing for May 19th to enable all parties to the case to assess the findings of the two additional examinations \u2013 one commissioned by the prosecution and one by the defence \u2013 and determine whether they would influence how proceedings would progress.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey\u00a0Donaldson, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 18 alleged offences.<\/p>\n

The charges include one count of rape and allegations of indecent assault and gross indecency, and span a time period between 1985 and 2008, involving two alleged victims.<\/p>\n

Eleanor\u00a0Donaldson, 60, of Dublinhill Road, Dromore, is facing charges of aiding and abetting, which she denies.<\/p>\n

Neither of the\u00a0Donaldsons\u00a0attended Tuesday\u2019s hearing in Newry courthouse.<\/p>\n

Prosecuting barrister Rosemary Walsh told the court that she had provided a position paper to all parties setting out two options on how the case could progress if Eleanor Donaldson is deemed unfit for trial.<\/p>\n

Eleanor Donaldson\u2019s counsel Ian Turkington insisted other options would also need to be considered in that scenario.<\/p>\n

Turkington said there was \u201ccogent medical evidence\u201d in relation to the \u201cunfitness\u201d of his client and insisted it would be \u201cgrossly unfair\u201d to commence a trial against her if she was not in condition to participate in it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The judge said all parties were talking \u201cin a bit of a vacuum\u201d until they had sight of the two medical assessments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really would be extremely disappointed if this case did not proceed on the 26th of May,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The judge acknowledged the May 19th review hearing meant \u201cquite a short turnaround\u201d for parties to consider the medical evidence ahead of the scheduled trial start date.<\/p>\n

But he said the court would be clearer on the \u201cpath forward\u201d after the review hearing.<\/p>\n

He said he realised there was some public concern over the \u201capparent delay\u201d in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is genuine medical evidence here in this case that we have to look at and we have to consider before we can proceed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think every effort must be made to expedite that so that we\u2019re ready to go on the 26th of May, because I think it\u2019s in the interest of all parties that the case should commence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Donaldson, a former long-standing MP for Lagan Valley, was arrested and charged at the end of March 2024.<\/p>\n

He resigned as DUP leader and was suspended from the party after the allegations emerged.<\/p>\n

Weeks before his arrest, he had led the DUP back into Stormont after a two-year boycott of the powersharing institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge has made clear he will be \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d if the historical sexual offences trial of former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-469655","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-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116522551023410374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469655","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=469655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}