The Donaldson Sex Abuse Trial: 3. Letter of regret

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]A woman who alleges the former DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, sexually abused her when she was a child, claims he expressed regret to her in a letter.

[00:00:10]>> The woman known in court as complainant A is the first person to give evidence in this trial.

[00:00:17]>> She said it was hard to take seeing him as a public figure pretending she said to be a good person.

[00:00:23]>> Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife, Lady Elanor Donaldson, deny all the charges against them.

[00:00:28]>> I was in court. This is the Donaldelsson sex abuse trial and a warning it contains some distressing content.

[00:00:39]>> Hello, welcome to the special series of the state of Us podcast. Uh Tara, you were in court as you say. The prosecution outlined its case yesterday, but today was the first evidence if you like coming from the first witness complaint a day.

[00:00:54]>> Yes. and she joined by video link and the first thing that happened was her police interview was shown to the jury.

[00:01:00]It lasted for about an hour and 20 minutes and it was conducted in March 2024 and that was about 3 weeks before the Donaldsons were arrested and charged.

[00:01:09]>> Okay. Well, what has she alleged that Sir Jeffrey Donaldelsson did to her?

[00:01:14]>> Well, the allegations come under three main categories. The first is that Jeffrey Donaldelsson had rubbed her chest area outside her clothes and then underneath her bra. He had made comments about her appearance, she said, and her body shape, particularly about the size of her breasts. On another occasion, then this was the second category, she said he'd kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth and moved it around. And she said the kiss was just not a pleasant thing, but when she pushed him, he laughed it off and said it was just a joke. And then the third category was that she said he'd used a torch or some sort of light to look at her private parts. and she was asked why she had come forward when she had and she said later in life when she had a baby she couldn't understand how anyone could do that to a child and she said it was her duty to protect other people and at that point in the interview she became quite tearful >> and this is the police interview as you said that's being played in the court but the jury was told about a confrontation between this complainant complainant A and Jeffrey Donaldson Yes. And she said that she had confronted him and asked him if he had done these things to her when she was a child and he had looked at the ground and nodded but he hadn't answered her.

[00:02:31]And then um we were also told about a letter that he had written to complainant A um expressing regret adding that he had sought God's forgiveness. And the crown lawyer, Rosemary Welsh Casey, read out the letter and she said it was written to the complainant in June 2020. And in it, he stated, "I wish I could find the right words to adequately express just how sorry I am for all of this. I take full responsibility for it all." He wrote that he had sought God's forgiveness and was receiving help. And Miss Walsh then asked complainant A about what she understood the letter to mean. and complainant A told the court he was trying to apologize for perhaps the abuse that had occurred but he did not want to say it firmly in writing.

[00:03:16]She said so there's a lot of apology but it's not specific.

[00:03:21]>> Okay. And uh Rosemary Walsh is the prosecutor. It's then the turn of the defense to cross-examine. Uh what were they asking? Well, during that crossexamination, Sir Jeffy's barristister Kieran Vaughn Casey put it to her that her mind was foggy about the alleged events because that was a word that had appeared quite a few times in her interview to the police. And then the complainant said she disagreed with that. She said she had used the word foggy in her police interviews in reference to her recollection of dates and times. Um, but she said the incidents themselves I remember significant detail due to the nature of what happened. And the defense barister also suggested that the alleged tongue-in- mouth and rubbing of chest incidents didn't happen at all. And he said, "Either you made it up, fabricated the tongue in the mouth, or the rubbing of the chest, or you dreamt it. And over the years, you have just come to believe that it's true." And complainant A said it was ridiculous and insulting to suggest that someone would dream such a thing for no good reason. The court also heard that complainant A was sexually abused by another man when she was a child. And the defense barister said, "Well, look, why did you not tell the police about that abuse when you were talking about this other alleged abuse?"

[00:04:34]And she said, "It was because the alleged abuse by Sir Jeffrey was of such great significance to her." And she said, "My priority was this case and dealing with this."

[00:04:44]>> Can we talk a little bit about demeanor in court? Um maybe her demeanor, but certainly Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's demeanor when this is is happening.

[00:04:52]>> Well, I'll start with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. And you know, he came into court that normal way we've got used to seeing now. The car pulls up, he walks through um the cameras and then he took his place in the dock. He was wearing a dark gray charcoal suit and a check tie.

[00:05:08]And during the um video evidence, he didn't look up at all. He sat and took notes the whole way through, right, for the full hour. You know, you're constantly, as you know, looking at various different things in the court while you're trying to take down the evidence as well. But that was something that was really noticeable that he was just writing constantly the whole way through. But what was different then when his barristister started the cross- examination, he looked up and watched intently um to hear the answers. And at at one point he was shaking his head as if to say as if to disagree with what she was saying. And then he called over one of the security guards that are just sitting in the court area and asked him to alert his solicitor. and he wrote a note to his solicitor and that was passed on presumably it was something he wanted his barristister to raise with complainant a >> okay and of course she is on a screen she she's not in the room so maybe a little bit harder to kind of read demeanor >> yeah I suppose in some ways compared to other cases um you would cover and the complainant would be in the courtroom and you'd be able to assess that a bit more and she did become tearful in a couple of places in the police interview but aside from that she answered all of the questions You said that the police interview lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, I think you said. How long was the live questioning today?

[00:06:26]>> Well, the live questioning from the prosecution barristister, Rosemary Walsh Casey, um didn't last very long. It was just a couple of points that he wanted to go over. But when Kieran Vaughn um KC for um Jeffrey Donaldson got to his feet that was done in sort of 35 minute chunks because the judge had said he wanted to give the jurors a break in between um just sort of 10 minutes just to gather their thoughts and um she's due back then complain a for further cross-examination by Kieran Vaughn tomorrow morning.

[00:06:56]>> Okay. Well, you're back in court for that and we'll regroup here tomorrow evening. Um, and we'll cover all the evidence um, in as much detail as we can here as it's heard at Nuri Crime Court.

[00:07:06]Um, but that's it for now. Thanks for listening.