Overview
- The prosecution told Newry Crown Court on Tuesday that it had finished presenting its case and the judge said the trial had reached a landmark stage.
- Recordings of multiple police interviews were played to the jury after the March 2024 arrests, with the sessions amounting to about four and a half hours and roughly three hours heard by jurors in edited form.
- In those interviews Sir Jeffrey Donaldson repeatedly denied the 18 charges against him, including one count of rape, and said a 2020 handwritten letter was not an apology for sexual abuse.
- Eleanor Donaldson, who denies five charges including aiding and abetting, has been ruled unfit for a normal criminal trial and faces a trial of the facts where a jury can only determine if alleged acts occurred and cannot impose a criminal sentence.
- Judge Paul Ramsey will hear defence and prosecution legal applications next and the jury has been told to return later in the week, with wider political and reputational consequences for the former DUP leader and lifetime anonymity protections remaining for the complainants.