Jeffrey Donaldson, former leader of Northern Ireland’s main pro-UK unionist party, had his bail extended Wednesday in his first court appearance on sex offence charges.
Donaldson, 61, one of the province’s best-known politicians, has previously said he will be “strenuously contesting” the allegations. In Wednesday’s court hearing, he did not enter a plea.
He is facing one charge of rape, one count of gross indecency towards a child and nine counts of indecent assault on a female, according to the Northern Ireland Court Service.
The two complainants, whose accusations span a 20-year period between 1985 and 2006, cannot be named for legal reasons.
The politician, who is an MP in the UK parliament, resigned as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) on March 29 after he was charged by police.
His wife Eleanor Donaldson, 58, who is employed as his parliamentary secretary, is facing four charges spanning a 10-year period. During a brief court hearing Wednesday, Donaldson and his wife stood in the dock as the charges were read out.
The pair were released on continuing bail, with the next court date scheduled for May 22, although they will not be required to attend.
The case is expected to come to trial in a year.
Longtime player
Security was tight around the court in Newry, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Belfast, as several paramilitary group members are also attending unrelated hearings on Wednesday.
Donaldson said nothing as he arrived at court, where police battled to hold back a media scrum. A devout churchgoer, he wore the ancient Christian symbol of a fish in his lapel.
A longtime player in Northern Irish unionist politics, Donaldson became DUP leader in 2021.
The party collapsed power-sharing at the Northern Ireland assembly in Belfast in February 2022 in protest at post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, which shares the UK’s only land border with the European Union.
It argued that the trade terms — agreed to avoid a so-called hard border with EU member the Republic of Ireland to the south and preserve peace after 30 years of sectarian conflict over British rule — risked cutting Northern Ireland adrift from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Donaldson announced in February that the party had struck a deal with the government to break the deadlock, paving the way for the assembly to resume.
The resumption of power-sharing led to Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill making history by becoming Northern Ireland’s first pro-Irish nationalist leader.
Unprecedented situation
As well as being the second largest party in the Northern Irish assembly behind Sinn Fein, the DUP had eight MPs in the UK parliament until Donaldson was suspended.
Donaldson, who received a knighthood in 2016, is the longest serving MP with a Northern Irish constituency, having been first elected in 1997.
He had been expected to lead the DUP into a general election this year but is now expected to quit.
The DUP said it had no knowledge of the allegations until his arrest on March 28. It removed all trace of the politician from its website and closed down his social media accounts.
Deputy leader Gavin Robinson, a lawyer who also sits in the UK parliament, has been appointed interim DUP leader.
Robinson, seen as a moderate, has pledged to provide stability to ensure the Belfast assembly is shielded from upheaval over the Donaldson affair.
“There are no precedents in Northern Ireland for dealing with this sort of situation, so the DUP has no idea of how its voting base will respond,” unionist commentator Alex Kane told AFP.
“Will the voters see this as a Donaldson-only issue, or will they see it as a wider reflection on the party? At this point nobody knows.”