A year before a formal complaint was lodged against him, a senior detective in the PSNI suspected that Jeffrey Donaldson, a prominent DUP politician, was responsible for child abuse. This revelation has emerged from a detailed investigation by the BBC Spotlight programme, which revealed that a DCI and child safeguarding expert identified Donaldson as the likely perpetrator after meeting with one of his victims in March 2023.
At a pivotal meeting at the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's headquarters, Complainant A and her partner met with the DCI and Dr Jacqui Montgomery-Devlin, who was the church's head of safeguarding at the time. The couple sought to understand the process for reporting abuse, but did not explicitly name their abuser during this initial discussion. However, Dr Montgomery-Devlin has revealed that both she and the DCI believed the description pointed towards Donaldson, describing him as a "very high-profile person". They also reported that the couple expressed concerns about leaving Northern Ireland if they made a complaint.
Former Chief Superintendent Norman Baxter has argued that such a suspicion should have triggered immediate action within the PSNI. He suggested that this intelligence would constitute information indicating alleged sex abuse by a high-profile politician, which could pose national security risks due to Donaldson's access to vulnerable adults and young people in his role as a constituency MP.
Complainant A and Complainant B subsequently named Donaldson as their abuser during a further meeting with the police in March 2024. The PSNI has conducted a thorough investigation into these non-recent sexual abuse allegations, but declined to comment on any prior intelligence or subsequent risk assessments due to ongoing legal proceedings.
Donaldson was convicted of 18 counts of sex abuse, including one count of rape, based on the victims' accounts of abuse that occurred between 1985 and 2008 when they were children. His wife, Lady Eleanor Donaldson, was also found to have committed acts related to five charges, including four counts of aiding and abetting her husband's offending, following a trial of the facts on mental health grounds.