{"id":536655,"date":"2026-06-15T18:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/536655\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T18:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:39:08","slug":"defence-closes-case-in-jeffrey-donaldson-sex-offences-trial-with-no-further-witnesses-called-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/536655\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence closes case in Jeffrey Donaldson sex offences trial with no further witnesses called \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/jeffrey-donaldson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/jeffrey-donaldson\/\">Jeffrey Donaldson<\/a>\u2019s defence case has closed at Newry Crown Court, with no further witnesses to be called.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Final legal arguments in the former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/democratic-unionist-party\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/democratic-unionist-party\/\">DUP<\/a> leader\u2019s sex offences trial will begin tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As the trial enters its fourth week, Jeffrey Donaldson\u2019s defence barrister, Kieran Vaughan, told judge Paul Ramsey on Monday that he is \u201cnow in a position to close my case\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A barrister for Jeffrey Donaldson\u2019s wife and co-accused, Eleanor Donaldson, said she is \u201cincapable of taking part\u201d and also confirmed that no further evidence will be called.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The two alleged victims in the case, known as Complainant A and B, are women who claim they were abused as children by the former Lagan Valley MP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Prosecution barrister Rosemary Walsh said she will deliver her closing submissions tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Jeffrey Donaldson (63), with an address in Dromore, Co Down, is accused of 18 offences \u2013 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He took the stand during two days of cross-examination last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His wife, 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 \u2013 charges she denies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Eleanor Donaldson is not present in court as she has been ruled unfit to stand trial on the basis of medical evidence and will instead face a trial of the facts \u2013 which replaces a criminal trial in such circumstances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">On Monday, the judge told the jury of seven men and five women that \u201call the evidence is finished now\u201d and reminded them not to discuss what they had heard outside of the courtroom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Legal arguments are expected to conclude on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The judge will then direct jurors on Thursday, before they retire to consider their verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Donaldson\u2019s defence case has closed at Newry Crown Court, with no further witnesses to be called. Final&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,31778,17927,13,14,6,41435,11,12,15,16,5,954,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-536655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-democratic-unionist-party","tag-down","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-jeffrey-donaldson","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116755586388063321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536655","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=536655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}