Jeffrey Donaldson steps down as DUP leader after being charged with historical sex crimes -*Read OP*

I think the Pastor and his wife giving opposing testimony was a very important factor. Both said the victim was crying, when Donaldson said she wasn't.

No. She is in the clear as regards a criminal conviction here, and into the future. Doctors/psychiatrists determined her fitness to stand trial

No punishment.

Her involvement in the "trial" was just bizarre and make fcuk all sense.

Before it started it was decided she couldn't be found guilty of anything or face consequences

Hopefully Eleanor eventually gets what's coming to her as well.

Is he barred from wearing his wee fish for life now I wonder?

She wasn't testifying against him….she, too was pleading not guilty (albeit in a trial of facts)…she did not actively engage in the trial

From what I understand they found she aided and abetted the crimes, but her mental state precludes her from getting a fair trial.

Hard to understand it though, plenty of people get convicted despite their mental state. V strange.

You're Right. I thought she gave evidence at the trial but I checked and took audio recordings from her Interviews with police when she was arrested and they played them to the jury.

I mistook that for her giving evidence. It makes more sense that she couldn't give evidence at trial.

I wonder whether, had the mental health issues not been surfaced earlier, any evidence she gave contributing to her husbands convinction could have been contested on the basis of her mental health. It may have been one of these difficult decisions that prosecutors have to make to ensure conviction and justice for the victims.

I guess that it also means that she will not be placed on the sex offenders register and will probably not be held in a secure mental health facility that provides treatment for sex offenders. The victims may have an option of private prosecution but I suspect they will not take that given what they have been through.

I don't think she ever would have been placed on the sex offenders' register, as there was no evidence or belief that she ever engaged in any physical acts. Her crime was aiding and abetting, a crime she can not be found to be guilty of. Maybe the register can have persons on it that never actually physically committed sexual offences. I don't know

"1999–2008: The period of offences committed against Complainant A, which included gross indecency and indecent assault"

Complaint B offences appear to have started before he was married and possibly not the ones witnessed by his wife.

The timeframe would only rule out his daughter in one of the two cases.

I imagine "trial of facts" will be the new go to attempt to get away scot free from crimes.

It makes absolutely no sense.

As a former juror myself, I felt there was enough to “tip the scales” in favour of the prosecution namely- The wife’s statements around what she “saw” and didn’t “see”- she essentially said she suspected some abuse had happened, without actually saying those words and Jeffrey’s own letter and apology for something so mysterious he couldn’t tell us what he was apologising for 😀.

I think without those two pieces of evidence, we may well have seen one or two jurors hesitate with a guilty verdict. But my own view of the two victims evidence was, it was strong clear and very measured- they stated only that which they could remember - that to me made it all the more believable .

Until he gets a Fáilte from the new guy in a new uniform in 15-20 years time!