Just over two years ago, Jeffrey Donaldson was view by many as the embodiment of mild-mannered respectability. His reputation as a pragmatic operator had been reinforced by his role in brokering the DUP’s return to the Executive after the Protocol deal. Today, through the extraordinary courage of two women, that carefully constructed image lies in ruins. The contrast between the public legend and the private reality is stark: Donaldson now stands convicted of offences that destroy any claim he ever had to moral authority.
Like many, I was stunned when the news broke. I had watched his long ascent, from a rising UUP star to persistent thorn in David Trimble’s side to DUP defector at a moment that helped accelerate his former party’s decline. He became central during the confidence and supply era, collected honours and ultimately took the DUP leadership in 2021. Throughout all of this, nothing in his public demeanour hinted at the truth. The media ecosystem helped sustain the fiction, offering soft-focus profiles and gentle interviews that reinforced his carefully curated persona. Since his conviction, a number of journalists have said publicly that they had heard persistent reports about Donaldson’s double life but felt constrained from investigating them. That explanation feels deeply inadequate.
Years ago, I wrote on Slugger O’Toole that Donaldson’s standing within unionism made him a less divisive figure. The reaction was immediate: private messages from UUP members and at least one from the DUP describing him as “sinister,” “scandalous” and fundamentally untrustworthy. At the time, it was hard to know what weight to give those claims. UUP members were hardly going to praise him and he was never universally loved within the DUP either.
Donaldson himself read some of my Slugger pieces and, to his credit, often absorbed criticism of the party, and of himself, without complaint. He occasionally asked how the DUP could improve though none of the suggestions were ever acted on. One example was my view that he should lead an appeal against Billy Walker’s suspended sentence for child grooming. He dismissed it saying there was “no need for that as Edwin was making the case.” I took this as political timidity rather than anything darker.
Yet one rumour persisted across different circles: alleged visits to gay establishments. It was oddly specific and it resurfaced repeatedly over the years. Now, with Donaldson convicted of 18 offences and his wife found to have committed five via a trial of the facts, a fuller picture has emerged. Reports detail heavy drinking, repeated adultery and visits to a gay sauna. BBC Spotlight added further accounts including Ian Paisley Jr’s recollection of Donaldson allegedly trying to force himself on a female MLA while intoxicated and of a young woman who said she had been “exploited” by him.
The Donaldson case raises serious concerns around safeguarding and institutional failures.
Judicial System
While the convictions were ultimately secured, the path to justice was far from acceptable. The delays, adjournments and procedural wrangling were not minor irritations but structural failures that placed an intolerable burden on Victims A and B. A system that routinely allows cases involving child sexual abuse to drift for years is not functioning as it should. The use of a trial of the facts for Eleanor Donaldson only deepened public unease. Whatever its legal basis, it created the perception that someone found to have committed serious acts could nonetheless avoid a criminal conviction. When combined with aggressive cross‑examination that suggested a complainant had “dreamt” her abuse, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the process itself became another ordeal. If Northern Ireland is serious about protecting victims, it cannot continue with a judicial framework that is procedurally correct on paper yet traumatising in practice as this is only going to deter other victims from coming forward.
The DUP
The DUP is in an extraordinarily difficult position. The party has become a byword for scandal, yet it rarely seems willing to enforce discipline or learn from past failures. Ian Paisley Jr should have been expelled years ago due to being involved in numerous scandals, and further revelations about Donaldson now undermine his attempts at rehabilitation ahead of the next election. Paisley was present at a 2008 function where Donaldson allegedly tried to force himself on a female MLA. Rather than reporting the incident, he remained silent. It only came to light on last week’s BBC Spotlight.
In 2021, Paisley also attempted to use information about another woman allegedly “exploited” by Donaldson for political gain. There is little evidence that any of this was properly reported to the authorities beyond Paisley informing Edwin Poots. Poots’ decision not to act, saying he wanted to “respect the wishes” of the complainant, represents another serious lapse. That he later received the Speaker’s role from Donaldson, reportedly in return for backing the Safeguarding the Union deal, only adds to the perception of a murky episode.
Since 2010, eight Northern Ireland politicians have been convicted of sexual offences. Five were DUP representatives, an astonishing proportion for a party that prides itself on being a close-knit family outfit. This is more than a run of bad luck; it raises serious questions about the party’s internal governance and culture.
The hypocrisy displayed by some within the DUP is equally striking. Senior figures knew Donaldson drank heavily and lived an adulterous life, yet allowed him to maintain the image of a teetotal, clean-living Christian that suited the party’s public identity. When Jim Wells and Ian Paisley eventually spoke out on Spotlight, their interventions carried limited weight. They had remained silent for years. More troubling still is the allegation that warnings about Donaldson’s behaviour towards women were ignored and incidents covered up.
The DUP now faces a profound trust problem. Its best chance of rebuilding credibility lies with Gavin Robinson, who over the past two years has shown considerable leadership around the Donaldson case, albeit not without missteps on other issues. The party has initiated an independent review, which must be allowed to run its course. Its recommendations should then be implemented without delay, and where they warrant disciplinary action or expulsions, the party must be prepared to act.
The UUP
While the current fallout is tearing the DUP apart, the cold chronology of the indictment shows that most of Donaldson’s horrific campaign of abuse took place during his UUP years. For nearly two decades he was nurtured, protected and promoted by the UUP establishment. This was not a DUP problem that somehow bled backwards; it was a broader Unionist blind spot. Donaldson built his armour of “respectability” within the UUP and by the time he defected to the DUP in 2003, his pattern of behaviour was already deeply entrenched.
Serious questions will inevitably be asked about what the UUP knew, suspected or chose not to confront. Donaldson’s double life was already underway during his time in their ranks yet no senior figure ever publicly alluded to it. On BBC Spotlight, Daphne Trimble added weight to longstanding claims that the UUP had commissioned a private investigator to look into Donaldson before his defection. As the wife of the party leader, her account carries weight.
Two of Donaldson’s mentors, Enoch Powell and Jim Molyneaux, were themselves subjects of police attention. Neither was charged but the fact they faced scrutiny adds context: Donaldson rose within a political culture where serious concerns about senior figures were handled quietly and never confronted as safeguarding issues.
The UUP has remained quiet so far, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on their part, but scrutiny cannot stop at the DUP. Donaldson’s public reputation was forged within the UUP long before he crossed the floor. It is legitimate to ask whether opportunities to identify troubling behaviour were missed, or ignored.
Vetting
Westminster’s role also raises uncomfortable questions. Donaldson’s lifestyle in London was, by multiple accounts, anything but discreet. He drank heavily, socialised widely and behaved in ways that contradicted the pious image he projected in Northern Ireland. If this conduct was visible to colleagues, staffers or officials, and there is little reason to believe it was not, why did it never trigger concern during the vetting processes for his knighthood or his appointment to the Privy Council?
Honours and Privy Council appointments involve both background checks and political judgement. If Donaldson’s behaviour in Westminster circles was known or routinely discussed, why did none of it prompt greater scrutiny? And if any rumours about sexual misconduct reached senior figures in government or the security apparatus, what, if anything, was done with that information?
These questions may never be fully answered, and that vacuum will inevitably encourage speculation. But they deserve answers. If concerns were raised and not acted upon, that would represent a serious institutional failure. Equally, if aspects of Donaldson’s behaviour were known within Westminster circles, it is legitimate to ask whether he was simply overlooked, quietly managed, or regarded as too politically important to confront. Any of those possibilities would point to a safeguarding failure that extends well beyond Stormont or the DUP.
Media
Outside of the DUP, my most scathing criticism is aimed at the media. For years, journalists and commentators were aware of aspects of Donaldson’s private behaviour that did not align with the saintly public image they continued to project. Yet none of this translated into meaningful scrutiny. The biggest political story in many years unfolded in plain sight, and the local media missed it and have subsequently scrambled to latch onto it long after the horse has bolted.
A good example was the Newsletter’s lifestyle feature, “Sir Jeffrey Donaldson: My Favourite Room.” It presented him in warm, domestic terms, a gentle family man surrounded by comforting objects. Pieces like this were part of a wider pattern of soft-focus coverage that reinforced the fiction of Donaldson as a clean living, morally upright figure. When journalists polish a politician’s persona while privately knowing or at least suspecting it is false, they become participants in myth making rather than interrogators of power.
Libel laws are not an excuse. There is no barrier to reporting that a senior politician was repeatedly seen drunk, out of control or behaving in ways that contradicted his curated image, especially when journalists themselves witnessed it. Instead, the media operated a system of selective curiosity: gathering stories, hearing accounts but choosing not to pursue them unless something seismic forced their hand.
This sustained myth building possibly made it harder for victims to come forward. When the press reinforces a narrative of moral purity, victims fear they will not be believed. Even during Donaldson’s trial, coverage often descended into trivial commentary about his suit, tie or haircut, a bizarre fixation that trivialised the gravity of the proceedings.
Northern Ireland’s media ecosystem is small, insular and overly reliant on the same handful of voices. The result is a complacent culture where narratives are recycled, scrutiny is inconsistent and difficult questions are avoided. Donaldson was missed, badly, and it is naïve to think he is the only one.
Final Thoughts
This whole affair leaves Northern Ireland politics with profoundly uncomfortable questions. The judicial system cannot keep putting victims through years of delay and legal gamesmanship. A “trial of the facts” may be legally tidy but it feels like justice half served. The Presbyterian Church and satellite religious groups need to examine their safeguarding record. The DUP must stop hiding behind reviews and implement one that bites. The UUP cannot pretend this was purely a DUP problem; they nurtured Donaldson for decades. The UUP owe it to their own reputation to open the books on Donaldson’s time with them and confront the rumours that have swirled for years around some of their past representatives.
The media also bears heavy responsibility. Too many journalists were happy to print the legend while ignoring the whispers. The cosy circles, the access journalism, the endless recycling of the same voices all of it helped shield a man who did not deserve shielding.
The line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has been sitting with me throughout all of this. It relates to a politician who rises to the top on the basis of a lie, and when he finally reveals the truth in his twilight years, the newspaper’s response is blunt: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Northern Ireland’s political and media culture has lived by that rule for far too long and Donaldson was its most successful beneficiary. His legend, the mild-mannered Christian, the steady unionist, the respectable figure, was repeated so often and by so many that it became a shield.
Parties repeated it. Westminster honoured it. Journalists polished it. And while the legend was being printed, the facts were being lived by two children who had no protection at all. In the end, it was not politicians, honours committees or newsrooms that tore that legend apart. It was the extraordinary courage of two women who refused to stay silent. They did what the institutions failed to do. The question now is a simple one: will any of us learn from it or will we just dust ourselves down and start printing the next legend.
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